Defining Greek Narrative 9780748680115

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EDINBURGH LEVENTIS STUDIES 7

Previously published Edinburgh Leventis Studies 1 Word and Image in Ancient Greece Edited by N. Keith Rutter and Brian A. Sparkes Edinburgh Leventis Studies 2 Envy, Spite and Jealousy: The Rivalrous Emotions in Ancient Greece Edited by David Konstan and N. Keith Rutter Edinburgh Leventis Studies 3 Ancient Greece: From the Mycenaean Palaces to the Age of Homer Edited by Sigrid Deger-Jalkotzy and Irene S. Lemos Edinburgh Leventis Studies 4 Pursuing the Good: Ethics and Metaphysics in Plato’s Republic Edited by Douglas Cairns, Fritz-Gregor Herrmann and Terry Penner Edinburgh Leventis Studies 5 The Gods of Ancient Greece: Identities and Transformations Edited by Jan N. Bremmer and Andrew Erskine Edinburgh Leventis Studies 6 Greek Notions of the Past in the Archaic and Classical Eras: History without Historians Edited by John Marincola, Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones and Calum Maciver Edinburgh Leventis Studies 7 Defining Greek Narrative Edited by Douglas Cairns and Ruth Scodel

EDINBURGH LEVENTIS STUDIES 7

DEFINING GREEK NARRATIVE Edited by Douglas Cairns and Ruth Scodel

© editorial matter and organisation Douglas Cairns and Ruth Scodel, 2014 © the chapters their several authors, 2014 Edinburgh University Press Ltd The Tun – Holyrood Road 12 (2f) Jackson’s Entry Edinburgh EH8 8PJ www.euppublishing.com Typeset in 11/13pt Times NRMT by Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Stockport, Cheshire, and printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon CR0 4YY A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978 0 7486 8010 8 (hardback) ISBN 978 0 7486 8011 5 (webready PDF) The right of Douglas Cairns and Ruth Scodel to be identified as Editors of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act 1988, and the Copyright and Related Rights Regulations 2003 (SI No. 2498).

CONTENTS

Preface vii Notes on Contributors ix  1 Introduction Ruth Scodel

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PART I  DEFINING THE GREEK TRADITION   2   3   4   5

Beyond Auerbach: Homeric Narrative and the Epic of Gilgamesh 13 Johannes Haubold Homeric Battle Narrative and the Ancient Near East 29 Adrian Kelly Narrative Focus and Elusive Thought in Homer 55 Ruth Scodel Structure as Interpretation in the Homeric Odyssey 75 Erwin Cook

PART II  THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE GREEK TRADITION   6   7   8   9

Exemplarity and Narrative in the Greek Tradition 103 Douglas Cairns ‘Where do I begin?’: An Odyssean Narrative Strategy and its Afterlife 137 Richard Hunter Some Ancient Views on Narrative, its Structure and Working 156 René Nünlist Who, Sappho? 175 Alex Purves

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contents The Creative Impact of the Occasion: Pindar’s Songs for the Emmenids and Horace’s Odes 1.12 and 4.2 197 Lucia Athanassaki Narrative on the Greek Tragic Stage 226 P. E. Easterling Stock Situations, Topoi and the Greekness of Greek Historiography 241 Lisa Irene Hau Heliodorus the Hellene 260 J. R. Morgan

PART III  BEYOND GREECE 14 15 16

Livy Reading Polybius: Adapting Greek Narrative to Roman History 279 Dennis Pausch Pamela and Plato: Ancient and Modern Epistolary Narratives 298 A. D. Morrison The Anonymous Traveller in European Literature: A Greek Meme? 314 Irene J. F. de Jong

Bibliography 334 Index 371

PREFACE

The present volume is the seventh in a series deriving from the biennial Edinburgh Leventis Conference in Greek. The conference and the visiting research professorship with which it is associated are generously funded by a grant from the A. G. Leventis Foundation. Since 1999 this grant has given the Edinburgh Classics department the enviable luxury of being able to invite, every two years, one of the world’s leading Hellenists to spend a semester in Edinburgh. The main event and principal public face of the Leventis Professor’s tenure is of course the conference, devised and organised by the Professor on a theme of his or her choice, but each Professor has also made a very substantial contribution to the intellectual life of the department, especially through public lectures and seminars for students and colleagues. The seventh A. G. Leventis Professor in Greek, Ruth Scodel (D. R. Shackleton Bailey Collegiate Professor of Greek and Latin, University of Michigan), was no exception: throughout her stay Ruth played a full part in the department’s academic and social activities. For her part, she is honoured to have served as the Leventis Professor, and was impressed by the engagement of her students and endlessly charmed by the city of Edinburgh. The seventh Leventis conference, 27–30 October 2011, was entitled ‘What’s Greek about Ancient Greek Narrative?’ All of the chapters included in this volume were presented at that conference. Sadly, other commitments have meant that not all of those who gave papers at the conference are represented in the current volume. We should like to record our thanks to Stephen Halliwell, Simon Hornblower, Nick Lowe, Damien Nelis, Patricia Rosenmeyer, Meyer Sternberg and Tim Whitmarsh, not only for the fine papers that they presented but also for the part they played in making the conference such a stimulating and enjoyable event. The success of the conference was also due in no small part to the hard work of Classics secretaries Jill Shaw and Amanda Campbell; to the staff of Edinburgh

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First, the University’s conference and accommodation specialists (and especially Gordon Dow and Kate Lindey); to our ever-cheerful student helpers (Maria Constantinou, Anthony Ellis, John Holton, James Livingston, Houliang Lu, Peter Morton, Siobhan Privitera and Pavlina Saoulidou); to the colleagues from other universities who chaired sessions (Øivind Andersen, Jon Hesk, Anastasia Maravela and Robin Mitchell-Boyask); and to the enthusiasm and support of Edinburgh colleagues in chairing sessions, asking questions and welcoming our visitors. All those who attended would also, we are sure, wish to join us in recording our thanks to Edinburgh’s finest institution, the Scottish Malt Whisky Society, whose tutored tasting and dinner were the high point of the conference’s social programme. The editors would like to thank Carol MacDonald and Fiona Sewell for their care and skill in seeing this volume through to publication. Our greatest debt of gratitude, however, is to the A. G. Leventis Foundation itself, for making possible the Professorship, the conferences that each Professor presents and the volumes that result from those conferences. We hope that this series of publications and the events from which they derive might be felt to justify the Foundation’s faith in Classics at Edinburgh and its investment in the future of Hellenic studies in Scotland. Douglas Cairns Ruth Scodel

NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

Lucia Athanassaki is Professor of Classical Philology at the University of Crete. She has co-edited Apolline Politics and Poetics (2009) and Archaic and Classical Choral Song: Performance, Politics and Dissemination (2011) and has published many articles and book chapters, especially on Pindar. Douglas Cairns is Professor of Classics in the University of Edinburgh. He is the author of Aidōs: The Psychology and Ethics of Honour and Shame in Ancient Greek Literature (1993), Bacchylides: Five Epinician Odes (2010) and Sophocles: Antigone (2014). He has also edited or coedited a number of volumes, including Oxford Readings in Homer’s Iliad (2001), Pursuing the Good: Ethics and Metaphysics in Plato’s Republic (Edinburgh Leventis Studies 4, 2007) and Tragedy and Archaic Greek Thought (2013). Erwin Cook is T. F. Murchison Professor of the Humanities at Trinity University, San Antonio, Texas. Among his publications are The Odyssey in Athens: Myths of Cultural Origins (1995, paperback 2006); ‘Epiphany in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter and the Odyssey’, Papers of the Langford Latin Seminar 15 (2012), 53–111; and ‘“Active” and “passive” heroics in the Odyssey’, in L. Doherty (ed.), Oxford Readings in Classical Studies: Homer’s Odyssey (2009), pp. 111–34. Irene J. F. de Jong holds the chair of Ancient Greek at the University of Amsterdam. She has published extensively on Homer, Herodotus and Euripides, and her work has been translated into Spanish and modern Greek. At present she is co-editing a multi-volume history of ancient Greek narrative, of which three volumes have appeared (Narrators, Narratees, and Narratives in Ancient Greek Literature, 2004; Time in Ancient Greek Literature, 2007; and Space in Ancient Greek Literature,

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2012). Recent publications include A Narratological Commentary on the Odyssey (2001) and Homer: Iliad Book XXII (2012). P. E. Easterling was Regius Professor of Greek at Cambridge from 1994 until her retirement in 2001, having previously taught in Manchester, Cambridge and London (UCL). Her main research interests are Greek drama and its performance and reception in antiquity, and the survival of ancient texts in later cultures. She continues to be a general editor of the series Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics. Lisa Irene Hau is Lecturer in Classics at the University of Glasgow. She has published articles on Greek historiography, and is co-editor of Beyond the Battlefields: New Perspectives on Warfare and Society in the Graeco-Roman World (2008). She is currently working on a book on moral didacticism in classical and Hellenistic historiography. Johannes Haubold is Professor of Greek at the University of Durham and a member of the Centre for the Study of the Ancient Mediterranean and the Near East. He is the author of Homer’s People: Epic Poetry and Social Formation (2000) and Greece and Mesopotamia: Dialogues in Literature (2013), and has co-authored Homer: The Resonance of Epic (2005) and Homer: Iliad Book VI (2010). Richard Hunter is Regius Professor of Greek at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Trinity College. His most recent books are Critical Moments in Classical Literature (2009), (with Donald Russell) Plutarch: How to Study Poetry (De Audiendis Poetis) (2011), Plato and the Traditions of Ancient Literature: The Silent Stream (2012) and Hesiodic Voices: Studies in the Reception of the Works and Days in Antiquity (2014). Many of his essays have been collected in On Coming After: Studies in Post-Classical Greek Literature and its Reception (2008). Adrian Kelly is Tutorial Fellow in Ancient Greek Languages and Literature at Balliol College, Oxford, and Clarendon University Lecturer in Classics at the University of Oxford. His publications include A Referential Commentary and Lexicon to Homer, Iliad VIII (2007), Sophocles: Oedipus at Colonus (2009) and assorted articles on early Greek epic, Athenian tragedy and Hellenistic poetry. He is currently writing a commentary on Iliad XXIII and co-editing (with P. J. Finglass) Studies in Stesichorus.

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notes on contributors xiii J. R. Morgan is Professor of Greek at Swansea University, and Leader of KYKNOS (the Swansea and Lampeter Centre for Research on Ancient Narrative Literatures). He has published extensively on the Greek novels, has translated Heliodorus’ Ethiopian Story for B. P. Reardon’s Collected Ancient Greek Novels (1989; 2nd edn 2008) and is preparing a new text and translation of Heliodorus for the Loeb Classical Library. A. D. Morrison is Senior Lecturer in Classics at the University of Manchester. He is the author of The Narrator in Archaic Greek and Hellenistic Poetry (2007) and Performances and Audiences in Pindar’s Sicilian Victory Odes (2007), and co-editor of Ancient Letters (2007) and Lucretius: Poetry, Philosophy, Science (2013). He is currently working on a monograph examining Apollonius Rhodius’ use of historiography (especially Herodotus) and a commentary on selected poems of Callimachus. He has edited Classical Quarterly since January 2013. René Nünlist is Professor of Classics at the University of Cologne and a co-founder of the Basel commentary on the Iliad (2000–). He is the author of Poetologische Bildersprache in der frühgriechischen Dichtung (1998, repr. 2011) and The Ancient Critic at Work: Terms and Concepts of Literary Criticism in Greek Scholia (2009, paperback 2011) and has co-edited (with Irene de Jong) vols 1 and 2 of the series Studies in Ancient Greek Narrative (2004, 2007). Dennis Pausch taught Latin and Greek at Gießen University from 2000 to 2011. During this time and during his research stay in Edinburgh as Feodor Lynen Fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation he wrote his first book (Biographie und Bildungskultur: Personendarstellungen bei Plinius dem Jüngeren, Gellius und Sueton, 2004) and his second book (Livius und der Leser: Narrative Strukturen in Ab Urbe Condita, 2011), which was awarded the Bruno Snell Prize of the Mommsen-Gesellschaft in 2011. Currently he teaches Latin at Regensburg University. Alex Purves is Associate Professor of Classics at UCLA. She is the author of Space and Time in Ancient Greek Narrative (2010) and co-editor with Shane Butler of Synaesthesia and the Ancient Senses (2013). Ruth Scodel is D. R. Shackleton Bailey Collegiate Professor of Greek and Latin at the University of Michigan and was the

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Leventis Professor at Edinburgh in 2011. She has written Credible Impossibilities: Conventions and Strategies of Verisimilitude in Homer and Greek Tragedy (1999), Listening to Homer: Tradition, Narrative, and Audience (2002), Epic Facework: Self-Presentation and Social Interaction in Homer (2008), (with Anja Bettenworth) Whither Quo Vadis? Sienkiewicz’s Novel in Film and Television and An Introduction to Greek Tragedy (2010). She is working on a commentary on Hesiod’s Works and Days.

1 INTRODUCTION Ruth Scodel

Behind this volume lies the hope that we will someday achieve a general view of the history of ancient Greek narrative (henceforth, for simplicity, often ‘Greek narrative’) – that is, that we will be able to present a meaningful narrative about how the practices of telling stories developed within Greek literature, and that this history will contribute to the understanding of both Greek literature and narrative generally. Before anyone can write a history, however, the historian needs to be certain that the field has been meaningfully defined, both temporally and spatially. A narrative requires a beginning and an end, and a historical narrative also requires a decision about what the subject is. These decisions will determine much of the history itself, and the choice of boundaries is difficult and ideologically weighted. While the ideological implications of literary history are sometimes less obvious than those of the histories of nations, they are very real, and the boundary difficulties present themselves immediately. Originality conveys literary value, and literary value can be important for a nation’s symbolic capital: this volume began as a conference in Edinburgh, with its monuments to Robert Burns and Sir Walter Scott nearby. There can be few cities where the significance of the cultural and literary inheritance, and its interactions with power and national identity, are so manifest. Deconstruction made many academics abandon any belief in real origins (‘toujours déjà’).1 Still, histories require them, and histories matter: the United States, Australia and the UK have all seen bitter controversies about the national history as represented in school history curricula or in museums.2 The ideological significance of literary boundaries is especially heavy in Classics, since the field’s very   1 The expression appears twenty-five times in Derrida 1967 and became a catchword.  2 For the United States, see Ravitch 1998; for Australia, Macintyre and Clarke 2004.

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name defines it as normative, exemplary, of especially high value. The canonisation of a set of texts, and anxieties about such canonisation, begin no later than the classical period itself.3 So in this volume Morgan’s chapter discusses what has often been at stake in such definitions. At the end of the Aethiopica of Helidorus, a Greek novel whose protagonists at the conclusion take their places in an idealised Ethiopia, the author defines himself as a Phoenician from Emesa. Once, Hellenists both denigrated the quality of the Aethiopica and argued that, because Heliodorus was not ethnically Greek, his novel was not properly Greek either; the novel itself, as a genre, was not really part of the modern canon of Greek literature. Recently, readers have valued the novel precisely for its hybridity. Morgan’s chapter is called ‘Heliodorus the Hellene’; he argues that the novel’s Ethiopia reaches its ideal condition only when it is Hellenised, and that the author’s origins do not conflict with a profound Hellenism. We can at least try to transcend both the prejudices of the past that established a narrow canon and aligned it with essentialist and racist assumptions, and the longings of our present for Greek texts to validate our liberal and multicultural values. The Leventis conference on which this volume is based asked ‘What’s Greek about Ancient Greek Narrative?’ In posing the question, we were aware of how much cultural freight ‘Greekness’ carries, but it is still a question that needs asking, and, as Morgan’s chapter explicitly argues, we are trying to develop a comparative eye that neither homogenises nor ignores resemblances. Doubtless most of the participants in the conference and in the volume are specialists in Greek literature because they love it, but we do not need to be the kind of lovers who attribute all excellences to the beloved and can see none elsewhere. It should be possible to define what is particularly Greek and what is generally ancient or even universal, along with what changes through the history of Greek literature and what is constant, without being excessively guided by our desires to create the story that we want. Structuralist narratology had the great merit that its schemata, whatever their limits, imposed a method that controlled this kind of prejudice. It should also be possible to recognise difference without making judgements of value. Being more or less typically Greek should not mean that a narrative is thereby superior or inferior. The question, though, is real. If the qualities of Greek narrative are universal, and Greek narratives could all be analysed in exactly the same way as those of the nineteenth century, ‘Greek narrative’ would fail as a useful definer, and although narratological studies of individ 3 Porter 2008.

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introduction 3 ual texts or genres would not lose all value, they would be interesting only as they served interpretative goals. The beginning of a history of Greek narrative is, from one point of view, easy, since before Homer and Hesiod nothing is preserved. The influence of Homer is so central in Greek literature that it can serve to define the tradition: we can speak of ‘Greek narrative’ because the narratives composed in Greek from 700 bce to the end of antiquity all are, directly or indirectly, descendants of the epic. However, the earliest Greek narrative texts are obviously products of a long oral tradition. Cook’s chapter on the Odyssey argues for a complex ring-structure. Ring-composition is characteristic of oral poetry in many cultures, but Cook argues that the way the Odyssey adapts narrative conventions to control audience response is both distinctive and influential. Homeric epic is equally obviously much influenced by the narratives of cultures to the east, in Egypt, Anatolia and Mesopotamia. If Homeric narrative, foundational in Greek, is not significantly different from ancient narratives in Akkadian, Hittite or Hebrew, ‘Greek narrative’ may not really be a useful category at all for the early period, and if it is not meaningful at its origin, it may not be meaningful at all. Although these narratives could all be significantly different from realistic novels, and historical interpretation could still be culturally limited, we would need to study all the ancient Mediterranean narratives as a group. Three chapters in this volume argue that Greek epic, despite its affiliations with other ancient narrative traditions, is distinct. If there are features that appear more consistently within Greek narratives of all periods than in other narrative traditions, or that mark off particular forms of Greek narrative, or that develop within the history of Greek literature, we have a valuable tool for studying the boundaries – not in order to police them, deciding what deserves to be considered Greek, but in order to understand the interactions that take place at them. There are many narratives that survive in the Greek language, whether the extant texts are translations or were originally composed in Greek – most notably Jewish and Christian narrative in Greek. With a clearer understanding of how Greeks told stories, we will more clearly perceive in what ways these narratives are or are not Greek. ‘Greek narrative’ can be a meaningful category even if individual features are not unique. We are far from knowing the narratives of the world well enough to make claims of uniqueness; more than one participant in the conference was frustrated that so little scholarly work on Chinese narrative is available in western languages. It may well emerge that features that appear in Greek, but not in, for example, Egyptian texts, are not rare in classical Chinese. This could

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be ­analogous to convergent evolution, where similar traits (the wings of birds and of bats) arise independently. Such resemblances would not make a history of Greek narrative within its own origins and descendants less meaningful, although knowing them would defend the historian against false assumptions. Again, exceptions do not change the entire story. If a papyrus presented a Greek narrative that showed features we associate with the modernist or postmodernist novel – an extended present-tense narrative, or one of that began at the end of the fabula and went backwards towards the beginning, or one filtered through the consciousness of a perplexed child, we would be astonished at the experimental boldness of an ancient author, but we would also recognise that this was an isolated instance. Twentieth-century narrative theory has a complex history, and many specialists in Greek literature were influenced by standard works like Lubbock’s The Craft of Fiction and Booth’s The Rhetoric of Fiction before the structural turn.4 Structuralist or ‘classical’ narratology became an important field within literary studies generally in the 1980s, with the translation of the work of Genette and Bal.5 It entered the study of Greek literature in 1987, with I. J. F. de Jong’s Narrators and Focalizers.6 De Jong’s book, which followed the method of Mieke Bal, made an outstanding contribution especially by showing that the Homeric narrator uses embedded focalisation – the ‘objective’ narrator slips into the perception of a character. This substantially changed the way we read Homer, and narratology became influential throughout classical studies. Still, Greek literature has not contributed to narratology as it might have, while Hellenists have for the most part not engaged with the further development of narrative studies. Very quickly, certain basic terms and methods became common currency: not only specialists in literature, but almost any classicist could be expected to understand the distinctions between story and discourse, between narrator and focalisers, between heterodiegetic and homodiegetic narrators. Although the basic taxonomies became familiar, however, classicists have mainly used narratology as a (very useful) toolbox whose contents often correspond to the tools available to the narratives being studied (the term ‘analepsis’, for example, is a tool for studying the use of the corresponding practice, a tool for a narrator). Classicists have tended to adapt the systems of Genette or Bal, without participating in the debates within narratology. Yet   4 Lubbock 1921; Booth 1961. There is a good treatment of the history and genealogy in Phelan and Rabinowitz 2008; Herman 2008 (on pre-structuralist work); Fludernik 2008 (structuralist and later). See also Nünning 2003.   5 Genette [1972] 1980; Bal 1985.   6 De Jong [1987a] 2004.

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Greek narratives often raise questions that could be central to basic, theoretical narratological debates. Structuralist narratology, for all its goal of a universal and scientific approach, worked almost exclusively with the novel. Bakker, for example, argues that the familiar narratological hierarchies of narrator/character are inadequate to describe performed narrative.7 Structural or ‘classical’ narratology was by its nature unhistorical. Although it tended to privilege the novel, its goal was a universal and scientific system that would allow the classification of the characteristics of all narratives. Inevitably, then, the application of narratological method to Greek texts tended to erase both the process of development of Greek narrative itself and the differences between Greek and modern texts, or between Greek and other ancient literatures. A large-scale project that attempted a narratological history of Greek narrative has produced a series of essays on the narrative characteristics of a range of authors and genres that provide much information for such a history, but has not united them into a story of historical development.8 Meanwhile, ‘new narratologies’ have proliferated, and narrative theory (a wider term that avoids the close associations of ‘narratology’ with the structuralist variety) has undergone a revival.9 A recent collection considers three aspects of contemporary narratology – the cognitive turn, the extension of narratology to media other than strictly verbal narrative (transmedial), and comparative narratology.10 There are others, however, including feminist and cultural narratologies. Hellenists are just beginning to engage with them, though some are, not surprisingly, more applicable than others. The 2009 volume Narratology and Interpretation represents one such attempt, with some chapters that incorporate poststructuralist narratology into the interpretation of text, while other contributions also reflect the new narratologies.11 I. J. F. de Jong’s chapter in Narratology and Interpretation addresses the possibility of a truly historical, diachronic narratology, ending with the comment: ‘In my view, classicists have an important task to fulfill in the writing of a history of European story-telling, which might well be the desired outcome of such diachronic narratology.’12  7 Bakker 2009.   8 De Jong et al. 2004; De Jong and Nünlist 2007; De Jong 2012.   9 Herman 1999 was an especially important volume; see also Alber and Fluernik 2010; Nünning 2000. 10 G. Olson 2011. 11 Grethlein and Rengakos 2009. 12 De Jong 2009.

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This chapter demonstrates one way in which we could historicise Greek narratology. First, we can keep the structuralist toolkit, but notice the ways Greek narrators use it differently. A technique defined by the same narratological term can work very differently in actual practice. De Jong’s chapter shows that ‘metalepsis’, the merging of different narrative levels, is used in archaic Greek literature in an entirely serious way that is utterly unlike the postmodernist play with which most contemporary readers associate it. Deborah Beck has shown that Homer uses free indirect discourse, but Homer is still very different from Flaubert or Henry James.13 In 1990, Don Fowler’s celebrated paper on ‘deviant focalisation’ in the Aeneid – a paper important for interpreters of a variety of ancient texts – showed that while the narratological categories gave interpreters a way to label difficult passages, it also gave them a too-easy way to avoid really confronting them.14 This is an issue in Greek literature, too. We could also historicise in another way, by looking especially at the cases where the Greek phenomena test structuralist typologies. Scodel’s contribution in this volume seeks to encourage Hellenists to look at narrative outside the categories of classical narratology, arguing that it can be impossible to decide who focalises, and that the question is often less significant than who is the centre of interest. Finally, we could create an actual narratological history of Greek literature, which would trace how narrative practice develops over time. This is an extraordinarily difficult task. Such projects are under way in other literatures (for example, the Institut für deutsche Literatur at the Humboldt University in Berlin has a collaborative project to historicise the narratology of German fiction since the Enlightenment; http:// fheh.org/projekte/methodenlehre/34/157–historische-narratologie). One path forward would surely be to consider narrative methods as they develop within genres – epic or historiography, for example. In Greek literature, a recent volume examines how ancient historians deploy pasts earlier than their chosen scope.15 The chapters in this volume represent different, but related efforts. Some are direct attempts at historical narratology. Pausch takes three elements that affect author–audience relations in historical narrative: the authorial first person, the use of summarising prefaces and the management of narrative strands within a chronological system. He contrasts Livy with Polybius. Perhaps the most striking and important transformation is simply that Livy focuses his history on Rome; there 13 Beck 2012: 9–10, 57–78. 14 Fowler 1990. 15 Grethlein and Krebs 2012.

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introduction 7 is no doubt where his centre of interest lies. De Jong traces the ‘anonymous traveller’ who filters the description of a place as a specific device that has its beginnings in Greek and develops through the novel. The chapter operates within the definitions of classical narratology, since it distinguishes the third-person anonymous observer from the generalised ‘you’ who can serve a similar function. However, its subject is not universal. There may occasionally be similar anonymous observers in non-western literatures, but the device seems to have its origin in the literature of travel (Herodotus) and to have the history it has in part because travel literature sustains it (a search for the phrase ‘the traveller who visits . . .’ gets 77,900 Google hits). One group of chapters is directly comparative; these are not tracing change in time, but using similarity and difference to define what is typically Greek. Three chapters address some of the earliest Greek narratives and their closest parallels in the Near East. Kelly looks at battle narratives and shows how different Greek epic is from ancient Near Eastern battle narratives. Both Scodel and Haubold turn to Auerbach’s famous comparison of Homeric and Biblical narrative. Scodel argues that Homeric narrative, although it does not use the Hebrew Bible’s technique of leaving profound and radical gaps, often leaves its audience uncertain about exactly what characters are thinking. Because the narrative shows the characters’ efforts to understand each other, and encourages the audience to consider the perspectives of minor characters, Homeric narrative regularly gives the impression that its characters are at once known and opaque. Haubold looks at Homer and Gilgamesh. He points to those moments at which the apparently smooth surface of Homeric narrative is disturbed: Priam is first called θεοειδής in Iliad 24, when he is experiencing an extreme of human suffering. These chapters also direct attention to other aspects of the volume: Haubold comments on Homer’s self-awareness. The poems already reveal anxiety about their claim to present a transparent window on the past; self-reflexiveness about narrative is central to the Greek tradition. Morrison compares in a very different way, looking at the modern epistolary novel and ancient collections of fictitious letters. Ancient and modern epistolary fictions share features that make them worth comparing – both are intensely interested in the motivations and psychology of the letter-writers. The differences are also striking, however. Modern epistolary novels often include non-epistolary material and an ‘editor’. Ancient epistolary works do not, even though the ‘found document’ was a device for other ancient fictions. The ancient collections are relatively short, are often not chronologically arranged, and tend to feature famous historical figures. They do not seek to tell a

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full story as modern novels do, in part, surely, because they have close affiliations with ancient rhetorical training. So the contrast points to a characteristic of at least one genre of Greek narrative. Some essays, though not explicitly comparative, also concentrate on such particular, salient characteristics of Greek narrative itself or of one of its genres. Athanassaki, for example, looks at how new narrative material is generated. By examining a particular group of Pindaric odes for a single family, the Sicilian Emmenids, she shows how the needs of each occasion interact with the narrative work that the poet has already performed in earlier compositions. In Pythian 8, the poet imagines a victory procession at Delphi, site of the victory, and the east frieze of the Siphnian treasury, showing the killing of Memnon, provides the inspiration for the song’s myth. This song defines both Achilles and Antilochus, son of Nestor, as exempla of filial piety. The narrative of Olympian 2 is the product both of its unique occasion and of the connections Pindar has already made. In Isthmian 2, in contrast, there is no mythic narrative, but the charioteer, exceptionally, becomes a narrative subject, perhaps because he commissioned the poem. Even if other narrative traditions similarly create new story-elements or new connections among stories under the pressure of occasionality, this is certainly a typical feature of Greek narrative. Cairns considers the ‘principle of alternation’ – the belief asserted in many Greek texts that no human life is without vicissitude. Similar ideas appear in many cultures, and this chapter also has a strong comparative side. Greeks have no monopoly on the awareness of mutability. The exemplary function of much Greek narrative, though, gives the principle some of its peculiar force in Greek texts. Occasionality and exemplary function are distinct but closely associated features of much Greek narrative – much Greek storytelling has a direct rhetorical purpose that determines both what the discourse selects or invents as ‘story’ from the available material and how it will be handled. Purves moves in an utterly different direction, studying Sappho’s refusal of narrative. Sappho 1 presents an inversion of Homeric narrative convention. In epic, the poet asks the Muse who was responsible for a significant heroic action. In Sappho, the speaker, asking Aphrodite for her help with her present love, narrates how the goddess visited her in the past, when Aphrodite asked Sappho who her beloved was. The audience does not learn who Sappho’s previous beloved was, or who it is now; Sappho’s poetry is marked by unsatisfying deictics that prime an audience’s expectations of narrative and frustrate them. In some ways, Athanassaki’s Pindar and Purves’s Sappho represent opposite ends on a spectrum of narrative possibility. Pindar, although he tells subjects from the shared Greek mythical

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past, attaches them to particular events and places, and to his own earlier narratives. Sappho, even when narrating personal experience, universalises. Sappho’s particular effects are possible because the wider Greek narrative tradition is much less oblique; if her practices were common, they would not work as well. Hau looks at Greek historiography as a distinct tradition. There are general characteristics of the major monuments of Greek historiography, such as the alternation between narrative by an impersonal narrator and argumentative passages. The tradition has general features, such as its interest in causality. Most striking, perhaps, are the stock situations that occupy so much historical narrative. Only when we consider what Greek historians ignore is it clear how much the specific literary tradition governs the stock situations. Easterling considers the particular nature of narrative in tragedy. Structuralist narratology generated productive work on messenger speeches, as well as some narratological studies of tragedy itself.16 Yet here, again, when we move beyond the questions of classical narratology, the thinking about tragic narrative points to some important characteristics of tragedy that are all too easy to forget. First, tragedy is highly compressed. Along with the ‘here’ of the visible stage and orchestra, tragedies summon the invisible space behind the stage façade, and along with the ‘now’ of the action they evoke both past and future. Most interesting, as a narrative development specific to the genre, is the evidence that the protagonist often delivered messenger narratives. This is particularly striking in tragedies where a messenger quotes direct speech, a technique that emphasises the fundamental multiplicity of the form. This invites further reflection, especially because the audience witnesses stage action and, in drama, narrative (and the responses of other characters to it) is itself action.17 Finally, Nünlist and Hunter both look at one of the most distinctive features in the history of Greek narrative – that, strikingly self-­conscious from Homer onward (a point Haubold also makes), it produces a critical discourse. While Nünlist looks at the ancient scholia for their underlying assumptions about how narrative should be structured, Hunter considers the long tradition in Greek narrative of making the choice of beginning highly salient. Of course such selfconsciousness is far from unique; it is a defining trait of modernist and postmodernist fiction. Indeed, because the assumptions and devices of 16 On messengers: De Jong 1991; Barrett 2002; tragedy and narratology: Goward 1999; Markantonatos 2002. 17 The importance of the other actors on stage and the difference between drama and narrative is stressed by Sansone 2012, esp. 78–82, 84–6.

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highly self-aware fiction have permeated our sensibilities, we need to be wary of reading too much self-consciousness into Greek texts. Still, these two chapters offer a valuable and relatively unexplored direction for the study of Greek narrative: its development in relation to the critical discourse about how stories should be told. Narrative theory and Greek literature still have much to learn from each other. We hope for useful exchange.

2 BEYOND AUERBACH: HOMERIC NARRATIVE AND THE EPIC OF GILGAMESH Johannes Haubold INTRODUCTION One of the most ambitious attempts to define ancient Greek narrative, and one of the most influential to date, is Erich Auerbach’s book Mimesis. In the famous opening chapter, written in Istanbul in 1942, Auerbach argues that Homeric narrative is all surface and illuminated detail, whereas the Hebrew Bible is elliptic, deep and demanding of its reader.1 To this day, Mimesis informs what modern readers see as characteristic of Homeric narrative,2 and of classical Greek literature more generally: for that reason alone, it seems important to revisit it in this volume. I would like to take the opportunity to consider how well Auerbach’s work has stood the test of time; and to reflect on what it can tell us about the nature of this collection: what does it mean to define Greek narrative? I begin by looking at how Auerbach’s vision of Homeric narrative emerges from what he himself called ‘the particular situation’ in which he conceived it. I then sketch out what I see as the circumstances in which, some sixty-five years after Auerbach, we find ourselves engaged in a similar set of questions. HOMER AND THE BIBLE On a superficial reading, the opening chapter of Auerbach’s Mimesis presents itself as a fairly straightforward exploration of Homeric narrative technique. Auerbach looks at a specific passage in Odyssey 19: the disguised Odysseus has entered his palace and is having his feet bathed by his old maid-servant, Eurycleia. Eurycleia notices a scar which Odysseus acquired as a young man, while hunting with   1 Auerbach 1953: 3–23 [1946: 7–30].   2 E. Said 2003: xviii.

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his grandfather Autolycus. The scar serves as a mark of recognition throughout the Odyssey, but here it threatens to give away Odysseus’ identity at an inopportune time: the hero reacts by clasping Eurycleia’s throat and swearing her to silence. Between her initial recognition and his violent reaction there intervenes a detailed narrative of how Odysseus acquired the scar. Auerbach opens on a conventional note, pointing out the vividness and attention to detail of Homer’s account: everything is carefully realised, nothing is ‘left in obscurity’.3 He then notes, again conventionally, that Homer is not interested in building up suspense. In fact, Auerbach claims, there is no aesthetic dimension at all to the digression in Odyssey 19: ‘the true cause of the impression of “retardation” appears to me to lie elsewhere – namely, in the need of the Homeric style to leave nothing which it mentions half in darkness and unexternalized’.4 As Auerbach explains further, ‘the Homeric style knows only a foreground, only a uniformly illuminated, uniformly objective present’.5 Sweeping claims about ‘the Homeric style’ were popular in classical scholarship of the early twentieth century: we may think for example of Milman Parry’s work on Homer’s ‘traditional style’.6 But Auerbach’s approach has an inflection all of its own, as can be seen from his engagement, not with the specialised Homeric scholarship of his day, but instead with Schiller and Goethe.7 As Edward Said notes, Auerbach had a particular gripe with Goethe, whose poetry he admired but whose ‘dislike of upheaval and . . . “revolutionary occurrences” ’ he saw as symptomatic of the nineteenth-century German malaise which led to the rise of Nazism in the twentieth century.8 By engaging with the arbiters of a specifically German literary sensibility, Auerbach signals that his piece of seemingly anodyne Homeric criticism is about to take a political turn. As he himself insists (Auerbach 1953: 573–4): It is better to be consciously than unconsciously timebound. In many learned writings one finds a kind of objectivity in which, entirely unbeknownst to the composer, modern judgments and prejudices (often not even today’s but instead yesterday’s or those of the day before yesterday) cry out from every word, every   3 Auerbach 1953: 4.   4 Auerbach 1953: 5.   5 Auerbach 1953: 7.   6 Parry 1971; cf. Arend 1933; Van Otterlo 1944.   7 Auerbach 1953: 5.   8 E. Said 2003: xxviii–xxix.

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rhetorical flourish, every phrase. Mimesis is quite consciously a book that a particular person, in a particular situation, wrote at the beginning of the 1940s. Auerbach insists that Mimesis, like any other attempt at literary engagement, had to be ‘timebound’. In its most general form that claim seems straightforward enough, yet it acquires added point when we consider Auerbach’s reference to ‘a particular person’ writing ‘in a particular situation’. The situation was Istanbul in the early 1940s, the person a German Jewish professor of Romance philology and renowned expert on Dante, who had been ousted from his chair in Marburg in 1935.9 James Porter has recently studied Mimesis in the context of its author’s exile from Nazi Germany and in that connection has argued that ‘in Mimesis . . . Auerbach’s Jewishness spectacularly emerges’.10 As Porter shows, Auerbach reclaims the Hebrew Bible at a time when Christian theologians like Walter Grundmann attacked it as undeutsch (‘un-German’).11 In Mimesis, the Old Testament strikes back, emerging as the only legitimate epic of the western literary tradition (Porter 2008: 133): ‘As the essay progresses, the points in the Bible’s favor mount up. Indeed, in Auerbach’s hands the Bible is destined to usurp the classical labels of (Schillerian) “tragedy” and finally of “epic” itself.’ Auerbach’s positive validation of the Bible comes at the expense of Homer, the master poet of the German literary and philological tradition. Indeed, Auerbach takes the opportunity to launch a scathing attack on Homer as the figurehead of German philhellenism, turning the established clichés of Homeric scholarship – the vividness, fullness and breadth of Homer’s account – against the epic master himself (Porter 2008: 134): Auerbach’s Homer is in a sense a caricature of the inherited classicized Homer, itself a cliché familiar already to Nietzsche in the mid-nineteenth century; he is all surface, no depth, all foreground, momentary presence, clarity, brilliance, sensuousness, simplicity, tranquil appearance (pure phenomenality), Apollonian. What Porter calls ‘the cliché’ of an ‘inherited classicized Homer’ needs to be seen in the wider context of German philhellenism, with

  9 Bremmer 1999; Konuk 2010. 10 Porter 2008: 116; cf. Porter 2010. 11 Porter 2008: 122–3; cf. Heschel 1994.

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its broadly antisemitic Tendenz.12 Like Freud before him,13 Auerbach subverts the terms of that discourse: whereas, he argues, the Hebrew Bible demands historical and moral commitment from its readers, Homer, via an association with the ephemeral pleasures of legend, comes to stand for the siren songs of (Nazi) propaganda, and the moral and historical amnesia which they induce. Auerbach’s Homer ‘bewitches’ and ‘allures’ whereas the Bible forces us – imperiously – to plumb the moral and historical depths of human existence. In 1942, at the height of the Nazi threat, this was cultural guerrilla warfare of extraordinary subtlety, brilliance and daring. Auerbach’s attack on the German Homer became productive as a piece of literary criticism in its own right: to this day, leading classicists look to it for inspiration, often misreading it as an endorsement of Homer’s narrative art.14 Auerbach’s comparison with the Bible has made less of a mark, perhaps unsurprisingly so, given how uninterested he was in the positive contribution it could make to Homeric scholarship. As Porter points out (Porter 2008: 127): ‘Auerbach is not so much offering a comparison as he is creating a stark contrast or, rather . . . an incommensurability that renders comparisons and contrasts moot.’ Porter’s claim can be illustrated by looking at the decisive moment in ‘Odysseus’ Scar’ when Auerbach introduces the tale of Abraham and Isaac as his main comparandum. I first quote it in Trask’s much-used English translation (Auerbach 1953: 7): The genius of the Homeric style becomes even more apparent when it is compared with an equally ancient and equally epic style from a different world of forms. In Trask’s translation, Auerbach’s argument sounds suitably comparative and, from the point of view of Homeric classicism, reassuringly encomiastic (the ‘genius of the Homeric style’). In fact, Auerbach wrote nothing of the sort (Auerbach 1946: 12): Die Eigentümlichkeit des homerischen Stils wird noch deutlicher, wenn man einen ebenfalls antiken, ebenfalls epischen Text aus einer anderen Formenwelt ihm gegenüberstellt. Eigentümlichkeit is best translated as ‘peculiarity’ or ‘idiosyncracy’, not ‘genius’: this is one of several instances where Trask’s translation 12 Gossmann 1994. 13 Leonard 2012. 14 E.g. Bakker 1999: 14; Clay 2011b: 33–4.

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seriously distorts the thrust of Auerbach’s prose. Another point is more relevant to the present argument: the German verb gegenüberstellen (‘confront with’), unlike Trask’s ‘compare’ (and unlike German vergleichen, which Auerbach might have used instead), emphasises the element of conflict which pervades Auerbach’s essay at every level. In truth, the point of ‘Odysseus’ Scar’ was never to compare, only to contrast: as Porter quips, ‘Auerbach ought to be remembered as the father of incomparative literature.’15 What can we learn from Auerbach’s Gegenüberstellung? First of all, there is the basic point that context matters; and that what is distinctive about Greek narrative can only emerge from comparisons that are meaningful in a specific cultural and historical context. Auerbach knew this better than most, as we have seen: Homer and the Bible, Odysseus’ scar and Abraham’s sacrifice, are selected to frame a specific set of problems, personal experiences and historical circumstances (‘a particular person, in a particular situation’). Indeed, it seems almost impossible to imagine what Mimesis might have looked like had Auerbach chosen different texts – impossible because through writing about Homer and the Bible Auerbach tackled the much broader issue of German philhellenism and its antisemitic implications. The stakes are very much lower now than they were for Auerbach, and it is far from obvious that we can, or should, aim for similar levels of generalisation when thinking about how we might define Homeric narrative today. But as readers of Auerbach, we do well to ponder what texts we compare when asking what is specifically Greek about Homeric narrative, and what is at stake in comparing them. My first point, then, is about context, and political commitments. My second point is about the commitment that is required of us as readers. James Porter insists that ‘the current attempts in some quarters to “correct” or “refute” Auerbach’s philology miss the contextual premises of his essay entirely’.16 That may be true, but ‘Odysseus’ Scar’ is not simply a political manifesto, and among its ‘contextual premises’ we must surely include Auerbach’s own commitment to philology, and philological debate. After all, he frames the opening chapter of Mimesis not as cultural polemic (which of course it also is), but as a committed reading of two texts: Homer and the Bible. One might call this a ploy, but the resonance which his work has had suggests something more: in the end, and above all else, ‘Odysseus’ Scar’ is a powerful reading, something that Auerbach himself insisted

15 Porter 2008: 120. 16 Porter 2008: 137.

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could no longer be done.17 Not for us the pathos of reading amidst war and industrialised mass murder. But the basic point still holds: the characteristics of Greek narrative must emerge, not from abstract theorising or cultural polemic, but from a committed encounter with specific texts. We no longer live at a time of acute crisis in the west, yet Homeric epic has once again become a cultural battleground. Auerbach could treat Homer unproblemactically as an example, indeed the example par excellence, of ‘western literature’ (abendländische Literatur). Sixtyfive years on, that idea has come increasingly into question.18 The ‘problem’, if that is what we want to call it, has been a steady encroachment of ‘non-western’ readers, literatures and ideas on the formerly ‘western’ territory of Homeric poetry. At the level of reception, Homer as oral-traditional poet has become very much a citizen of the world, as Graziosi and Greenwood have shown.19 A similar blurring of familiar lines can be observed in the study of the ancient world, from Martin West’s (in)famous quip that ‘Greek literature is a Near Eastern literature’ to Sarah Morris’s more specific claim that ‘it may be a greater challenge to isolate and appreciate what is Greek in Homeric poetry than to enumerate its foreign sources’.20 Many scholars have reacted to these developments by affirming the essential Greekness of Homeric narrative. Thus, Barry Powell derives its vividness – for him, unlike Auerbach, an unquestionably positive feature – from the ability of the Greek alphabet to capture ‘human thought’ with unrivalled accuracy. Sarah Morris has stressed the ‘uniquely Greek heroic dimensions’ of Homeric epic, while James Redfield sees ‘Greek secularism’ as a defining characteristic of the Iliad in particular.21 What these scholars have in common, it seems to me, is a tendency to fence off Homeric narrative from other literatures in the ancient Mediterranean. I am reminded of an image that Mary Louise Pratt once used to describe the study of comparative literature prior to the Bernheimer Report of 1993. She writes (Pratt 1995: 58): In Perth County, fencing is a big issue. You have to keep your cattle in, your neighbour’s out, keep your chickens in and the foxes out, keep the bulls from the cows, the boars from the sows, and everybody out of the manure pile. Fences take a lot of monitoring and maintenance . . . The impression . . . is that to be in the 17 Auerbach 1953: 13. 18 Bremmer 1999: 7–8. 19 Graziosi and Greenwood 2007. 20 M. L. West 1966: 31; Morris 1997: 623 21 Powell 1997: 11; Morris 1997: 599; Redfield 1994: 247.

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field of comparative literature is to be a farmer always walking the fences and patching them up to make sure nothing wild gets in, nothing valuable gets out, no unforeseen matings and crossbreedings occur. Fencing off the western canon and making sure ‘nothing wild gets in’ seems to me to be an accurate description of much current work on Homer. Unlike Pratt I am not convinced that the answer can be simply to take down the fences and let the foxes into the henhouse: Homerists in particular will do well to acknowledge their investment in a tradition of reading that stretches back over 2,500 years. But the challenge, in the twenty-first century, must surely be to extend our range as readers, and in so doing to explore ‘new forms of cultural citizenship’.22 In pursuit of this goal, I sketch a comparative reading of Homer which takes its cue from Auerbach but looks beyond the western literary canon. HOMER AND GILGAMESH My comparison focuses on the Epic of Gilgamesh, a text that more than any other has challenged notions of an essentially Greek canon of western literature. For many years now, Gilgamesh has loomed large in Homeric studies: thematic parallels with the Iliad and Odyssey were noticed from early on, often with a view to establishing – or disproving – literary influence.23 Much has been written about the practicalities of transmission, but there has been less sustained interest in the experiences of readers: many classicists were content to treat Gilgamesh as a repository of Homeric ‘stories’, ‘motifs’ or ‘techniques’ (Haubold 2006). In this chapter, I want to resist the current trend towards literary-historical abstraction, and revisit some of the questions that interested Auerbach: how does Gilgamesh represent reality, and how does its approach compare to that of Homer? What is ‘externalised’, what is left to the imagination? What work of interpretation are we, the readers, expected to do, and to what purpose? The Epic of Gilgamesh introduces its protagonist as ‘he who saw the deep’ (Tablet I, line 1). Coming from Auerbach, one is struck by the obvious resonances of this opening, as indeed of the lines that follow: amur, ‘see!’; itaplas, ‘look!’ (SB Gilg. I.13 and 15 (George)). The issue of how we are to envisage reality is squarely put on the agenda. Initially, this takes us on an upward trajectory (ilī-ma, ‘go up!’), as we scale the walls of Uruk and contemplate the temples, orchards and 22 Pratt 1995: 62. 23 Morris 1997; M. L. West 1997; Haubold 2002, 2013.

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clay pits of Gilgamesh’s home town. But soon we are led downward, to where the text itself awaits us in its cedar box. We must find it, then open the lid of its secret, then read (SB Gilg. I.19–28 (George)). As we pass into the subterranean world of this text, the question arises of how the adventures of Gilgamesh relate to what we see around us. Appearances are rarely self-explanatory or straightforward in this text. Just as the reader must look beneath the surfaces, so do the characters within it. Gilgamesh himself is a good example: after the death of Enkidu, he goes in search of his ancestor Utanapishti, who alone of all humans survived the deluge. This is a special man and it ought to show. However, when they finally meet, Gilgamesh is puzzled by what he sees (SB Gilg. XI.1–4 (George)): GIŠ-gím-maš a-na šá-šu-ma izakkara(mu)ra a-na mUDnapišti(zi) ru-ú-qí a-na-aṭ-ṭa-la-kúm-ma mUD-napišti(zi) mi-na-tu-ka ul šá-na-a ki-i ia-ti-ma at-ta ù at-ta ul šá-na-ta ki-i ia-ti-ma at-ta d

Gilgamesh spoke to him, to Utanapishti the Far-Away:    ‘As I look at you, Utanapishti, your form is no different, you are just like me,    you are no different at all, you are just like me.’ Utanapishti is a riddle. Gilgamesh cannot read him, not, that is, without the extended narrative of the deluge that takes us beyond the level of surface appearances: Utanapishti himself announces it as a ‘precious account’ (amat niṣirti) and a ‘secret of the gods’ (pirišti ša ilī) at SB Gilg. XI.9–10 (George). The riddle of Utanapishti’s existence mirrors that of Gilgamesh’s own. Utanapishti, on first glimpsing him from afar, is baffled by his presence on Urshanabi’s boat (SB Gilg. X.184–6 and 191–3 (George)): UD-napišti(zi)tim ana ru-qí i-na-aṭ-ṭa-l[a-áš-šu(m)-ma] uš-tam-ma-a ana lìb-bi-šú a-ma-ta i-[qab-bi] it-ti ra-ma-ni-šu-ma šu-ú i[m-tal-lik] [. . .] a-na-aṭ-ṭa-lam-ma ul ia-[ú amēlu] a-na-aṭ-ṭa-lam-ma u[l . . .] a-na-aṭ-ṭa-lam-ma [. . .] m

Utanapišti was watching [him] in the distance,    talking to himself he [spoke] a word.

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He [was taking counsel] in his own mind. [. . .] ‘I am looking – he is no [man of] mine,    I am looking – he is no [. . .] I am looking – [. . .]’ Utanapishti ‘the distant’ (rūqu) is here defeated by a distant sight: ‘I am looking . . . I am looking . . . I am looking’. In Tablet I, the wild man Enkidu was told to ‘look at Gilgamesh and contemplate him carefully’: he would see an embodiment of human beauty, strength and power (ll. 234–7). Now, Gilgamesh himself has become a riddle, as he chases after the most elusive of all sights. ‘Nobody can see the face of death’, says Utanapishti to Gilgamesh at Tablet X.304–5. Or perhaps Enkidu can, when he dreams of a terrifying young man who takes him down to the underworld (SB Gilg. VII.168–86 (George))? The answer to that question depends on how we interpret the dream. Dreams are famously important in Gilgamesh. They are vivid and memorable, in a sense the most characteristic form of visual experience in the text. Yet they precisely do not allow us unproblematic access to reality. Their imagery is charged with symbolism and hidden meanings. The effect is confusing to the onlooker, and calls for careful decoding. The following example is fairly typical (SB Gilg. IV.99–107 (George)): [i]b-ri a-ta-mar šalušta(3)ta šu-ut-ta ù šu-ut-ta šá a-mu-ru ka-liš šá-šá-át [i]l-su-ú šamû(an)ú qaq-qa-ru i-ram-mu-um [u]4–mu uš-ha-ri-ir ú-ṣa-a ek-le-tum [ib-r]iq bir-qu in-na-pi-ih i-šá-a-tum [nab-l]u iš-tap-pu-ú iz-za-nun mu-ú-tu [id-’]i-im-ma né-bu-tú ib-te-li i-šá-tu [iš-tu?] im-taq-qu-tu i-tu-ur ana tu-um-ri [ta-’-al-d]am-ma ina ṣēri(edin) mit-lu-ka ni-le-’-[i]

100

105

‘My friend, I have seen a third dream,   and the dream that I saw was completely confused. The heavens cried aloud, while the earth was rumbling,   the day grew still, darkness went forth. Lightning flashed down, fire broke out,   [flames] kept flaring up, death kept raining down. The fire so bright dimmed and went out,  [after] it had diminished little by little, it turned into embers. [You were] born in the wild, can we take counsel?’

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Two points stand out about this dream. First, it is an intensely visual experience: line 101 sets the scene in terms of sound, but then silence falls, and darkness prepares for a visual display of rare intensity. Yet this display – and that is my second point – is difficult to comprehend: although there is a presumption that it has a meaning at the level of plot, that meaning is not obvious and needs to be unpacked. Dreams are of defining importance to the narrative art of Gilgamesh: they punctuate the text, confronting us with striking images but pointing towards a hidden reality.24 In Homer, dreams have a far less prominent role, and are visually less impressive.25 Agamemnon’s in Il. 2.5–42 brings a message from the gods which deceives him but which to us is perfectly transparent. Penelope’s dream at Od. 19.535–69 is more detailed and challenging, but in the end it interprets itself. Perhaps most interesting is Penelope’s dream of her husband at Od. 20.87–90: why, we may ask, does he look as he did when he set off for Troy? The question is worth pondering, but the poet does not dwell on it. In terms of intensity, range of expression and sheer detail, even the dreams of Penelope cannot compare with those of Gilgamesh. In a simile at Il. 22.199–201, Homer describes in vivid detail a specific type of dream (the frustrated chase). Similes, in a sense, are to Homer what dreams are to Gilgamesh. Here we find elaborate images mapped onto the story: Hector is like a lion; Achilles is like a star. Yet Homeric similes are not symbolic in the way that dreams are in Gilgamesh. Rather, they allow the poet to pull away from the point of comparison, and in so doing create a separate visual field. So, Achilles is not just like a star but ‘like that star which comes on in the autumn and whose conspicuous brightness far outshines the stars that are numbered in the night’s darkening, the star they give the name of Orion’s Dog, which is brightest among the stars, and yet is wrought as a sign of evil and brings on the great fever for unfortunate mortals’ (Il. 22.26–31). This image too is ominous, but it requires no interpretation (contrast the stars that feature in Gilgamesh’s dreams, with very different effect); rather, Homer superimposes two images that are equally transparent, and that both retain a high degree of autonomy. The technique of the extended simile, it has often been noted, is quintessentially Homeric: there are plenty of similes in Gilgamesh too, but they are always short, and even the famous image of the lioness at Tablet VIII.61–2 can hardly be called vivid. The similes of Gilgamesh create not a separate visual field so much as a fleeting interference: ‘he fell on 24 Noegel 2007: ch. 2. 25 For detailed discussion see Kessels 1978.

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them like an arrow’ (X.96); ‘death rained down on them like a mist’ (V.136). The effect here is suggestive rather than vivid, in a manner that I have argued is characteristic of Gilgamesh more generally. I have written of the complexities of the gaze in Gilgamesh and the ‘deep vision’ it requires of its readers. Homeric narrative too has its complexities, but these are of a different order. Here is an ancient commentator on Iliad 6 (Schol. bT on Il. 6.467): ταῦτα δὲ τὰ ἔπη οὕτως ἐστὶν ἐναργείας μεστά, ὅτι οὐ μόνον ἀκούεται τὰ πράγματα, ἀλλὰ καὶ ὁρᾶται. λαβὼν δὲ τοῦτο ἐκ τοῦ βίου ὁ ποιητὴς ἄκρως περιεγένετο τῇ μιμήσει. These lines are so full of vividness [enargeia] because we do not just hear about the events but see them too. Taking this scene from real life, the poet achieves the highest degree of imitation. Access to reality is not a problem here, or rather, it is not presented as a problem: all we need to do is acknowledge the marvel of vividness, enargeia: ‘we do not just hear about the events’, says the ancient commentator, ‘but see them too’. And that leads him to remark on Homer’s ability to imitate real life. The scholiast’s comments capture an aspect of Homeric narrative which has spoken powerfully to readers throughout the ages: Homer invites us to imagine events as if we were present – from grand panoramic vistas to detailed observations at close quarters, including the famous descriptions of battle wounds which to this day startle the reader with their gory realism.26 As Auerbach points out, Homer’s attention to detail has a corollary even at the level of grammar (Auerbach 1953: 6–7): The separate elements of a phenomenon are most clearly placed in relation to one another; a large number of conjunctions, adverbs, particles, and other syntactical tools, all clearly circumscribed and delicately differentiated in meaning, delimit persons, things, and portions of incidents in respect to one another, and at the same time bring them together in a continuous and ever flexible connection; like the separate phenomena themselves, their relationships . . . are brought to light in perfect fullness; so that a continuous rhythmic procession of phenomena passes by, and never is there a form left fragmentary or half-illuminated, never a lacuna, never a gap, never a glimpse of unplumbed depths. 26 Grand vistas: Purves 2010: ch. 1; Clay 2011b. Wounds: J. Tatum 2003.

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I shall return to the question of ‘unplumbed depths’ in a moment, but for now I note that Auerbach’s analysis chimes with recent work on Homeric language. Egbert Bakker, for example, makes a similar point when he suggests that Homer’s language guides the reader from one focus of consciousness to another, with particles and other syntactical aids helping to keep the audience engaged.27 Vividness seems indeed the all-pervasive concern. BEYOND AUERBACH Having started from Auerbach’s Gegenüberstellung, I have arrived at conclusions that in some ways look familiar: yet again, Homeric poetry emerges as fully illuminated, blindingly of the present; whereas the Epic of Gilgamesh, by contrast, was seen to foster a ‘deep vision’ of reality, challenging us to probe further than might be comfortable or enjoyable. Much of this recalls the findings of Mimesis. But there are differences too. At a general level, there seems to be no reason to call the Homeric approach superficial. Consider the famous passage which introduces the Iliadic catalogue of ships (Il. 2.484–93): ἔσπετε νῦν μοι, Μοῦσαι Ὀλύμπια δώματ’ ἔχουσαι – ὑμεῖς γὰρ θεαί ἐστε πάρεστέ τε ἴστε τε πάντα, 485 ἡμεῖς δὲ κλέος οἶον ἀκούομεν οὐδέ τι ἴδμεν – οἵ τινες ἡγεμόνες Δαναῶν καὶ κοίρανοι ἦσαν. πληθὺν δ’ οὐκ ἂν ἐγὼ μυθήσομαι οὐδ’ ὀνομήνω, οὐδ’ εἴ μοι δέκα μὲν γλῶσσαι, δέκα δὲ στόματ’ εἶεν, φωνὴ δ’ ἄρρηκτος, χάλκεον δέ μοι ἦτορ ἐνείη, 490 εἰ μὴ Ὀλυμπιάδες Μοῦσαι, Διὸς αἰγιόχοιο θυγατέρες, μνησαίαθ’ ὅσοι ὑπὸ Ἴλιον ἦλθον. ἀρχοὺς αὖ νηῶν ἐρέω νῆάς τε προπάσας Tell me now, you Muses who have your homes on Olympos – for you are goddesses, are present, and know all things, 485 but we hear only the kleos, and know nothing – who were the leaders and commanders of the Danaans. I could not tell the masses nor name them, not even if I had ten tongues and ten mouths, a voice that cannot break, and a heart of bronze inside me, 490 unless the Muses of Olympos, daughters of aegis-bearing Zeus, remembered all of those who came to Ilios; but now I will tell the leaders of the ships, and all the ships there were. 27 Bakker 1997.

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At one level, this passage confirms Auerbach’s analysis: once again, the emphasis is on the possibility of a direct encounter with the past. Yet, as Andrew Ford points out, the passage also articulates a problem: ‘the poet’s problem is not simply the finitude of human existence; it is also an aesthetic problem, a difficulty with representation itself, with the project of recounting experience’.28 As Ford goes on to argue, there is an awareness, already in Homer, that what we are promised is in effect a paradox, ‘a true account of an unaccountable reality’.29 The problematic nature of this arrangement emerges more fully in a passage in the Odyssey, which describes the blind bard Demodocus. Blindness separates Demodocus from his audience; but it also marks a different, divine, kind of vision (Od. 8.63–4): τὸν περὶ Μοῦσ’ ἐφίλησε, δίδου δ’ ἀγαθόν τε κακόν τε· ὀφθαλμῶν μὲν ἄμερσε, δίδου δ’ ἡδεῖαν ἀοιδήν. The Muse loved him greatly, and gave him both good and evil: she took his eyesight but gave him sweet song. Ancient readers thought that this description of Demodocus was autobiographical: Homer’s blindness, just like Demodocus’, was thought to be compensated for by his poetry. As the image of the blind bard suggests, there remains a gap between our own experience of the world and that of the poet. The Contest of Homer and Hesiod takes up this idea when it pits Homer against Hesiod to determine who is the leading poet of Greece. Asked to select his best piece of poetry, Homer opts for the following passage (Contest of Homer and Hesiod ch. 12 (West)): ἔφριξεν δὲ μάχη φθεισίμβροτος ἐγχείῃσιν μακραῖς, ἃς εἶχον ταμεσίχροας. ὄσσε δ’ ἄμερδεν αὐγὴ χαλκείη κορύθων ἄπο λαμπομενάων θωρήκων τε νεοσμήκτων σακέων τε φαεινῶν, ἐρχομένων ἄμυδις. μάλα κεν θρασυκάρδιος εἴη ὃς τότε γηθήσειεν ἰδὼν πόνον οὐδ’ ἀκάχοιτο. The murderous battle bristled with long spears that they held to slice the skin; eyes were dazzled with the glint of the bronze from the shining helmets, the fresh-polished corselets, and the bright shields 28 Ford 1992: 76. 29 Ford 1992: 77.

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as the armies clashed. It would have been a bold-hearted man who felt joy at the sight of that toil and not dismay. What makes this passage remarkable in the context of the present discussion is Homer’s ability to depict a scene so gruelling that we would not want to witness it directly. Only Homer can contemplate it unscathed, and in so doing can convert a grim reality into vivid, enjoyable representation. There could hardly be a more pointed reminder that the modalities of representation are as much an aesthetic concern in Homer as they are in Gilgamesh: far from reflecting a mere quirk of the Greek mentality, a ‘need’ that had to be fulfilled at all costs (Auerbach), Homeric enargeia was a quality to display, reflect on and worry about. There is a sense that the Homeric text makes it a point of concern, and that later generations of readers did the same.30 Indeed, I would argue that Homer is particularly interested precisely in those moments where the narrative surface cracks and, pace Auerbach, we do catch glimpses of ‘unplumbed depths’ beneath it. This is perhaps most obvious in the Odyssey, which reflects on what it is to be ‘a/the man’ through an elaborate play of disguise and recognition.31 Yet the Iliad too challenges us to look beyond appearances. Consider the following passage from near the end of the poem (Il. 24.477–84): τοὺς δ’ ἔλαθ’ εἰσελθὼν Πρίαμος μέγας, ἄγχι δ’ ἄρα στὰς χερσὶν Ἀχιλλῆος λάβε γούνατα καὶ κύσε χεῖρας δεινὰς ἀνδροφόνους, αἵ οἱ πολέας κτάνον υἷας. ὡς δ’ ὅτ’ ἂν ἄνδρ’ ἄτη πυκινὴ λάβῃ, ὅς τ’ ἐνὶ πάτρῃ φῶτα κατακτείνας ἄλλων ἐξίκετο δῆμον, ἀνδρὸς ἐς ἀφνειοῦ, θάμβος δ’ ἔχει εἰσορόωντας, ὣς Ἀχιλεὺς θάμβησεν ἰδὼν Πρίαμον θεοειδέα· θάμβησαν δὲ καὶ ἄλλοι, ἐς ἀλλήλους δὲ ἴδοντο.

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Tall Priam came in unseen by the others and stood close beside him and caught the knees of Achilles in his hands, and kissed the hands that were dreadful and manslaughtering and had killed so many of his sons. As when dense disaster takes hold of a man who has murdered 30 For discussions of post-Homeric enargeia, see variously Zanker 1981; Walker 1993; Webb 1997; Manieri 1998; Zangara 2004; Spina 2005; Otto 2009. 31 Goldhill 1991; Murnaghan [1987] 2011.

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another man in his homeland, and he comes to the country of others, to a wealthy man, and wonder seizes those who behold him, so Achilles wondered as he looked at godlike Priam, and the rest of them wondered also, and looked at each other. Priam has come to Achilles’ tent to beg for Hector’s dead body. After slipping in unseen, he suddenly appears before the man who killed his son. A poignant reverse simile captures some of the complexities of the situation: if anybody is rich it is Priam; and if anybody is a killer, it ought to be Achilles.32 The obvious mismatch between the simile and the situation it describes leads on to a challenging visual encounter. As Achilles and his men marvel at Priam, outward appearance is emphasised: Achilles ‘wondered as he looked at godlike Priam’; ‘and the rest of them wondered also, and looked at each other’. The language of θάμβος is suggestive of epiphany, a characteristic feature, I have argued, of traditional narratives inspired by the Muses (24.482–3; cf. LfgrE s.vv. θάμβος, θαμβέω). However, what is at issue here is not the easy illumination which for Auerbach becomes the hallmark of Homeric narrative: Priam’s presence amazes but also puzzles those around him – how could he possibly be here? Slightly later, Achilles will ask that very question (Il. 24.519), and will take it as the starting point for an extended reflection on what it is to be human. What we see here is not a narrative surface without depth or moral significance, but a poet in search of the elusive humanity that unites even Achilles and Priam. CONCLUSION Auerbach was right: the Homer who emerges from my discussion is still a master of immediacy. Conversely, and rather like Auerbach’s Bible, the Epic of Gilgamesh challenges us to probe beyond the surfaces of the perceptible world. Two very different approaches, then, each articulated in a distinctive voice: didactic, even cajoling, in Gilgamesh; seductive in Homer. These differences, I have argued, are aesthetically meaningful rather than merely betraying different mentalities: Gilgamesh configures the relationship between reality and representation as oblique and challenging whereas Homer invites us to acquiesce in the epiphanic powers of the Muse. But Homeric representation too reveals hidden depths, and more generally, the different aesthetic choices which I have described do not preclude convergences 32 Macleod 1982: 126.

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at a deeper level: both Homer and Gilgamesh use their poetic resources to reflect on the human condition; and both insist that what makes us human cannot be read off the surface of things. I argued at the beginning of this chapter that what is characteristic about Greek narrative can only emerge from comparisons that are meaningful in a specific cultural and historical context. It makes sense that Auerbach, writing in exile from Nazi Germany, should have juxtaposed Homer and the Bible; and that he should have found them to be strictly incompatible. I have argued that it makes equal sense for us today to compare Homer with Gilgamesh; and to discover that, for all the differences between them, they do in fact share some key concerns. Yet even while allowing for shared concerns, and perhaps especially then, we must respect the poetic fabric of the texts we read. Auerbach’s example, it seems to me, can be helpful here: despite his profound commitment to rehabilitating the Hebrew Bible – and his equally profound misgivings about the Homer of Schiller and Goethe – he insisted on approaching both as a close reader. At a time when many classicists find themselves caught between their philological commitment to Greek literature and their political commitment to opening up the canon of western literature, applying the skills of committed and close reading across the texts we consider and compare – which is what Auerbach did – seems crucial.

3 HOMERIC BATTLE NARRATIVE AND THE ANCIENT NEAR EAST Adrian Kelly

How do we define ancient Greek narrative? The theme of this volume, and the conference on which it is based, is more than a timely one. Thanks to the efforts of many scholars – Walter Burkert and Martin West above all – classicists now take very seriously the role of comparative study in helping to illuminate the culture of early archaic Greece, usually by listing apparently parallel phenomena in the many civilisations of the ancient Near East (hereafter ANE).1 Whilst the broadening of horizons in this way must be a welcome development, not all of the new vistas are equally fair, and some are so tempting as to have distracted us from the task at hand. As Robin Osborne observed some time ago, ‘[i]t is worth stopping to ask what is really at stake here . . . If I choose to disagree with with that claim [i.e. of a parallel], what is at stake? . . . What is really at stake is my ability to understand the Iliad.’2 These stakes were then famously upped by Sarah Morris’s claim that ‘in the final analysis, it may be a greater challenge to isolate and appreciate what is Greek in Homeric poetry than to enumerate its foreign sources’.3 The current chapter takes up that challenge, and suggests that ANE texts should not be treated as direct source material for the Iliad and Odyssey. Classicists should not ignore this material, of course, but we must move beyond the ­methodologically naive

I should like to thank Bill Allan, Sophie Gibson, Chris Minkwoski, Richard Rutherford and Christopher Metcalf for their help with this chapter and its material; Douglas Cairns, Ruth Scodel and the School of History, Classics and Archaeology at the University of Edinburgh for arranging this volume and the conference at which it was presented; and Peter Kruschwitz, Ian Rutherford and the Department of Classics at the University of Reading for a first, and very generous, hearing. I apologise to all specialists in ancient Near Eastern studies for using English translations of their primary sources.   1 For bibliography on the orientalist revolution, see Rollinger 1996: 156–9, 2004: 369–6, 2011 or 2012.   2 Osborne 1993: 232.   3 Morris 1997: 623.

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‘­ parallelomania’4 which currently characterises the project. In short, the time has come to stop heaping up similarities between texts separated by language, distance and time, and then suggesting that these lists can ‘speak for themselves’. Instead, we must be explicit about the aims and limitations of comparative study. Those aims can be defined in two general directions: (1) genealogy, or the use of other texts to elucidate a particular historical relationship with a target text; and (2) analogy, or the use of other texts to illuminate the particular qualities of that target.5 Of course, these two directions are not opposed, and the Greeks were profoundly influenced by the several neighbouring cultures with which they interacted, so that analogy and genealogy can and should be combined.6 But a simplifying and simplistic form of the latter has become almost the default function of comparative study in Homeric scholarship: the Iliad and Odyssey are mined for parallels with non-Hellenic texts, these parallels are isolated in their Homeric contexts as ‘strange’, ‘faulty’ or ‘un(der) motivated’, and their presence in Homer thus explained as yet another form of the Quellenforschung so familiar from the work of the Analysts and Neoanalysts,7 with the only development being the addition of the vast literatures of the ANE to the list of potential source documents. There are more nuanced approaches to be found,8 but many more comparisons have simply pushed this obviously limited method to almost absurd extremes.9 The material chosen to make my point in this chapter is the battle narrative in the Iliad, principally because this kind of poetry was considered in Graeco-Roman antiquity as something particularly   4 The term is owed to Sandmel 1962: 1: ‘that extravagance among scholars which first overdoes the supposed similarity in passages and then proceeds to describe source and derivation as if implying literary connection flowing in an inevitable or predetermined direction’.   5 For the conceptual dichotomy in practice, see Taylor 2007.  6 Cf. MacDonald 2000: 8–9 for a very rigorous method for identifying textual interaction.   7 The former has recently been revived, not uncoincidentally, by M. L. West 2011; for the latter, see most recently the papers in Montanari et al. 2012.   8 Cf. esp. Haubold 2002 and 2006, and I. Rutherford 2009 for an excellent discussion of the dynamic between Hesiodic poetry and ANE traditions. For a broader critique of the models of cultural contact in vogue amongst classicists, cf. Hall 2004.   9 Cf., e.g., Louden 2011 for a particularly egregious example, while B. Currie 2012 even argues for a Homer who bears more than a passing resemblance to T. S. Eliot, alluding not only to the Epic of Gilgamesh, but also to the way that this composition alludes to much earlier Sumerian narratives! ANE specialists are very wary of this type of intertextuality (cf., e.g., Westenholz 2010: 30), and more generally of the way classicists use their material; cf. esp. George 2003: 55–7 and Haubold 2006.

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Homeric: in the Contest of Homer and Hesiod, for instance, ‘Homer’ chose as his signature piece two scenes of massed battle from the thirteenth book of the Iliad (126–33, 339–44),10 and his association with combat persisted throughout antiquity.11 Given the hermeneutic stakes with which we opened this chapter, this should be a good testing ground for my project.12 I shall argue that representations of battle in ANE sources give us no assistance in understanding the Homeric texts, if we are seeking to make a genealogical link between the traditions. Homer did not derive his techniques of combat representation – directly or indirectly – from those sources. The comparative material can, nonetheless, show us by analogy what makes this central element of Homer’s poetry so unique, indeed so typically and characteristically Greek. In keeping with these two basic dynamics of comparative study, the present chapter seeks to do two things. The second is to hazard some generalisations about battle narrative in Homer and ANE traditions, and thus grab at something of the Greek text’s unique quality. But first it will examine an example of an apparent direct interaction between the traditions, in this case from the Hebrew Bible, to illustrate the drawbacks of the genealogy method, at least as it is currently practised. Along the way, I hope to find some new things to say about the Homeric episode; this is, ironically, one of the unintended benefits of what elsewhere has been called ‘hard Orientalism’:13 it makes us look afresh at the problems and challenges of our texts, in order to explain them better.

10 Cf. Graziosi 2002: 175–80. 11 Cf., amongst many other examples, Cicero Tusc. Disp. 5.39.114, who notes the ‘quae species formaque pugnae, quae acies’ as one of the ‘picturae’ typically afforded to the Homeric audience. 12 For orientalising and genealogical treatments of Homeric battle narrative, see esp. Rollinger 1996 and M. L. West 1997: 206–17; also below, n. 41. I do not attempt here to discuss all the supposed parallels raised by these two treatments, but none is sufficiently strong to suggest Homer’s direct knowledge or interaction with ANE sources, as Rollinger 1996: 159 admits: ‘es soll . . . betont werden, daß die angeführten Beleg- und Parallelbei[s]piele nicht unbedingt als jene orientalischen Werke betrachtet werden müssen, von denen die betreffenden Motive in die griechische Welt flossen. Sie sind vielmehr als Elemente eines “Genpools” gedanklicher Konzepte, wie sie in der altorientalischen literarischen Welt greifbar sind, anzusehen, mit dem in auch die Griechen der früharchaischen Zeit in irgendeiner Form in Berührung kamen und der sowohl für ihr Denken als auch für ihre literarische Formgestaltung nicht ohne Folgen blieb.’ However compelling the parallels with the few, isolated (and widely disparate) motifs listed by West and Rollinger, they cannot account for Homeric battle narrative when taken as a whole (see below, pp. 40–54). 13 Kelly 2008b: 292–3, 302–4.

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GENEALOGY, THE DIAPEIRA AND THE BOOK OF JUDGES The episode in the second book of the Iliad known as the Diapeira has puzzled scholars since antiquity: Agamemnon’s suggestion of testing the army (2.73–5) comes with no warning, and adds what has been considered an unnecessary and confusing new element to the beginning of battle. Moreover, its substance – deceiving his troops into thinking he wants to go home, and then causing them to rush down to their ships – is an unusual way to motivate an army before a new phase in the fighting. Critics have unsurprisingly struggled to make sense of the scene and its justification: some look to Agamemnon’s damaged standing in the army as the poet’s point; others to the war-weary attitude of the Greeks; still others to the presence or interference of an inferior poet.14 But Martin West has pointed to another solution. Noting the episode’s standard difficulties (‘Was there ever such a custom, in life or letters? It would not seem a very sensible one’), he then finds the answer in the Book of Judges from the Hebrew Bible (‘Yet we find a clear parallel’),15 specifically the passage in which the hero Gideon is instructed by Yahweh to ‘test’ his army (7.2–3):16 (2) The LORD said to Gideon, ‘The troops with you are too many for me to give the Midianites into their hand. Israel would only take the credit away from me, saying “My own hand has delivered me.” (3) Now therefore proclaim this in the hearing of the troops, “Whoever is fearful and trembling, let him return home.” ’ Thus Gideon sifted them out; twenty-two thousand returned, and ten thousand remained. As one of a series of actions designed to reduce the size of Gideon’s forces, so as to increase their awareness of Yahweh’s role in the victory, the test has a direct and explicit purpose in the Hebrew narrative. West is not explicit about the reconstruction of textual relationships in this case, but it is clear from the way he introduces the parallel that he is inclined to follow the usual reasoning of ‘better motivated = original’. 14 For a recent summary of approaches and bibliography, cf. Latacz 2003: 29–30, 40–1, adding Sehnert-Siebel 1994 and Cook 2003. 15 M. L. West 1997: 207–8. M. L. West 2011: 100–8 posits an Analytical solution, suggesting that the whole of 2.50–441 was an insertion, by the same poet, into his original version, in which Thersites urged the army to leave: the test is thus an ‘afterthought’ (p. 103). Much of West’s argument depends on the ‘paradoxical’ nature of the test, for which see below. 16 The Hebrew Bible is quoted here and throughout from the New Standard Revised Version.

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homeric battle narrative and the ancient near east 33 He was not, however, the first to note the similarity with the Iliadic passage: Ronald Knox and Joseph Russo go even further, linking the Diapeira not only with the test from Judges but also the various prescriptions on warfare in the twentieth chapter of Deuteronomy (specifically 20.8):17 The officials shall continue to address the troops, saying ‘Is anyone afraid or disheartened? He should go back to his house, or he might cause the heart of his comrades to melt like his own.’ Knox and Russo therefore propose a standard rule underlying both Greek and Hebrew traditions, conditioned either by a universal need for ‘holy war’ or through a common ‘third cultural force’. Though West seems more inclined to think of that third force as the reason for the similarity, these two treatments are fundamentally similar, in looking outside Homer to fix a Homeric ‘problem’. In evaluating these claims of influence, one of the first issues is the dating of the texts involved. The so-called ‘Deuteronomic History’ of the Hebrew Bible, the portion of narrative running from Deuteronomy itself to the Second Book of Kings, is variously placed in the seventh or sixth centuries bce,18 though that does not mean that it does not preserve much older material, perhaps beyond the turn of the first millennium. A seventh-century date would of course still fit with the downdating of the Iliad favoured by West (and others),19 but the increasingly popular sixth-century position would largely rule out Homeric interaction of the type usually envisaged. In both cases, of course, older oral traditions are coming into textualised forms at some point between the eighth and sixth centuries bce, but the chances are that the Hebrew text, in the form in which we have it, is later than the Iliad. Leave that point to one side, for direct interaction between the traditions need not depend on a single (or final) textualised version of Judges. A more important question is why a Greek poet would notice, let alone emulate, this relatively brief Biblical episode. Knox and Russo call it a ‘famous’ passage; whether that is true or not of its standing today, we should be wary of concluding that it was famous in the eighth or seventh (or sixth) century bce. It is not impossible, of 17 R. Knox and Russo 1989. 18 Cf. esp. Römer 2007 for a review of the entire question (I am indebted to Ruth Scodel for this reference). It is uncertain whether the narrative is the work of a single author, which would demand the later date, or the result of a series of redactions and recompositions of earlier material. 19 See most recently M. L.West 2011: 15–27.

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course, that a Greek poet came across the theme and realised that it was shamefully underexploited. Nonetheless, if West and others are right that the test is misused or misunderstood in the Iliad and that this is a sign of its derivation from the Hebrew narrative, then the Greek poet must have been so powerfully struck by the original version in Judges as to use it without complete harmonisation or recomposition in the Iliad (on which more later). The interaction must be possible, of course, but – given the scale and relative unimportance of the Hebrew passage – is it likely? This doubt applies even if we confront Knox and Russo’s belief that such a method was a ‘rule’ widely used all over the ancient world. Their evidence in this regard – Deuteronomy 20.8 (quoted above) – is problematic: in Judges, Yahweh brings about the test ‘not in order to reduce the fear in others’ (as in Deuteronomy), but just in order to reduce the size of the army and thus increase his own glory. His purpose there certainly has nothing to do with Deuteronomy’s sound military reasoning. Can, then, these two very different passages amount to anything like a rule?20 Moreover, even if we do assume that a ‘discouragement test’ designed to elucidate an army’s negative response was a widespread general custom in the ancient world (on which more below), we have much less warrant to think in narrow stemmatological terms: not only could such a custom could arise independently in several places, so that its presence in any two of those places need not be directly linked,21 but any process of transfer need not depend upon its textual manifestations alone.22 But what if this is a case of indirect interaction of some sort, that is, it is not this specific example of the motif in Judges (or even Deuteronomy) but another example, perhaps in an oral version, with which a Greek – not even necessarily a poet – became familiar at any point from the ninth century onwards, or perhaps even earlier? 20 Furthermore, there is some suspicion that Deut. 20.8 is a late addition to the text, perhaps modelled on the very passage from Judges; cf. Rofé 2002: 162 and n. 48. 21 Richard Rutherford reminds me aptly of the magnificent St Crispin’s Day speech in Henry V (Act IV Sc. 3): ‘Rather proclaim it presently through my host / that he which hath no stomach to this fight, / let him depart. His passport shall be made / and crowns for convoy put into his purse. / We would not die in that man’s company / that fears his fellowship to die with us.’ Shakespeare may well have come across the passage in Judges, but is anyone prepared to argue that Henry’s speech owes anything to it? 22 R. Knox and Russo 1989: 352 also argue that this is a rule on the Greek side of the equation because Agamemnon labels it θέμις (2.73). Yet such claims in Homeric epic are exercises in self-justification in a particular context, and not mere recitations of legislative fact: cf., e.g., Il. 9.33, 16.796, 23.44 and 24.652, next to more clearly customary usages as 9.134 = 276, 11.779, 14.386, 19.177; cf. Scodel 1998b: 49–50.

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Though Serge Frolov and Allen Wright have recently cast great doubt on the frequency and depth of contacts between Greeks and Jews during this period,23 let us allow the hypothesis, since it is certainly more likely than a direct interaction thesis. Once more, however, we are immediately faced with the problem that the motif of the ‘discouragement test’ is found only in these two places in the Hebrew Bible and nowhere else – as far as I know – in ANE literatures. We cannot, therefore, follow Knox and Russo in their claim that it was a typical motif in several traditions, and that it was in this form that the motif became known to Greek audiences or poets vel sim. If there were heroic traditions informing later representations of Israelite heroes and kings, as Susan Niditch has argued,24 then the ‘discouragement test’ does not seem to have been a particularly prominent part of those stories, for it has left very little trace. But there are, of course, many prior questions. In leaping straight to wondering about how precisely Homer (or someone) came into contact with the motif we find in Judges and Deuteronomy, it might seem that we’ve conceded the parallel status of the episodes and undertaken the burden of sundering them. Instead, let’s approach the issue, as we should, from the other direction: are they actually ‘real’ parallels or, in other words, how many differences do we need before we start doubting the validity of the equation in the first place? The general similarity in context and progression is clear: a leader, with backing from his supreme deity, tests the courage of his army. Yet there are also several important departures, and the first three lie in the role of the respective deities: first, Yahweh demands this test in Judges, while Zeus doesn’t mention it in the Iliad; second, Yahweh wants his side to win immediately and for him to get all the credit, while Zeus wants the Greeks to lose, at least temporarily, in fulfilment of his promise to Thetis; third, Yahweh explicitly wants the army reduced in size,25 while Agamemnon definitely does not. Finally, of course, the consequence is also different: whilst Gideon is left with a harder core of supporters for even further reduction in another, separate test (Judges 7.4–8), the entire Greek army eventually returns to the fight with its enthusiasm strengthened. Indeed, given these differences, perhaps we should examine more closely the initial stimulus for the parallel – the apparently problematic or defective nature of the Iliadic episode. Though the Diapeira 23 Frolov and Wright 2011. 24 Niditch 1993: 90–105. 25 Cf. Niditch 2008: 97: ‘The outcome of the battle depends not upon Israelite expertise, but upon the prowess and goodwill of the divine warrior, protector of Israel. The fewer the number of human soldiers, the greater the victory of God.’

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seems initially a surprising ploy on Agamemnon’s part, much of what motivates and structures the episode is typical within the Homeric corpus itself. The importance of such an analysis is that it may provide a simpler explanation for the shape of the Diapeira, simpler both in the sense that it does not require the extra step of an external source, and in the sense that it is based in accepted and established fact – Homer’s relationship with his own epic tradition. The first source of comparison is the ‘suggestion of retreat’ theme.26 Frequently in the Iliad a character suggests to a group that they should retreat, as Agamemnon in Book 9 after the disastrous showing on the second day of battle (16–29), or again in Book 14 when things look even more bleak (64–81); on the Trojan side, consider Polydamas’ two such suggestions to Hector (12.208–29, 18.249–82).27 On each occasion, the suggestion is rejected, sometimes eventually (as in Book 9) and sometimes immediately (as Books 14, 12 or 18), but only after telling reactions from those around the suggesting speaker. For instance, in Book 14 Odysseus and Diomedes are required to prevent Agamemnon from suggesting retreat to the army as a whole (82–132), whilst in Book 9 the combined efforts of Diomedes and Nestor are similarly needed (31–77), though this time – unlike in the Diapeira – the army gets to witness Agamemnon’s real, tearful breakdown. These subsequent conversations all make clear why the suggestion is not to be followed, why the Greek army cannot leave Troy and why the Trojans must stay out in the field: Diomedes and Nestor focus inter alia in Book 9 on the inevitability of the Trojans’ eventual defeat (32–49, 42–78), Odysseus in Book 14 on the need not to let the Greeks hear of such a plan in their current situation (82–102, esp. 90–102), Hector in Book 12 on Polydamas’ apparent stupidity and cowardice 26 Cf. 2.109–368: Agamemnon suggests (109–41) – Odysseus rejects (183–332) – Nestor rejects (and amplifies) (333–68); 9.16–77: Agamemnon suggests (16–29) – Diomedes rejects (31–49) – Nestor rejects (and amplifies) (52–77); 14.64–132: Agamemnon suggests (64–81) – Odysseus rejects (82–102) – [Agamemnon submits (103–8)] – Diomedes rejects (and amplifies) (109–32); 12.208–50: Polydamas suggests (208–29) – Hector rejects (230–50); 18.249–309: Polydamas suggests (249–82) – Hector rejects (284–309). For slightly less complex sequences, cf. 2.224–42 (Thersites suggests – Odysseus rejects), 5.241–50 (Sthenelus suggests – Diomedes rejects), and for successful examples (all of which are prefaced by divine intervention to that end; Kelly 2007: 164–5), cf. 5.590–606 (Diomedes suggests – crowd follows), 8.138–44 (Nestor suggests – Diomedes eventually follows), 15.281–300 (Thoas suggests – basileis follow), 17.621–3 (Meriones suggests – Idomeneus follows). 27 These examples are chosen merely for reasons of space and prominence in the poem. All of the examples in the previous footnote show the same pattern, with the natural exception of those cases – preceded by direct divine intervention to that end – where the suggestion is followed.

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homeric battle narrative and the ancient near east 37 in going against the clear indications of Zeus’ favour (230–50), and again in Book 18 on the wasting of the Trojans’ resources as a reason for forcing the issue now (284–309). This is one very important illuminating context for Agamemnon’s decision to deceive the army, since it allows the poet (1) to suggest to his audience the failure of the suggestion, and (2) to throw emphasis on the process which prevents the Greek retreat: at first it looks extraordinarily as if they will abandon Troy, until Odysseus brings the troops back to their places (155–211) after Athena’s intervention, but even then an act of rebellion from Thersites requires a further moment of Odyssean consolidation (212–44). After beating down the rebel, and being explicitly (!) approved for it by the rank and file (270–7), Odysseus’ speech calls the audience’s attention back to omens received at the start of the war (299–332) before Nestor seals their renewed eagerness for the fight with practical instructions for the coming battle (336–68). The Diapeira is, therefore, a uniquely long example of the ‘suggestion of retreat’, one which involves not only two of the most prominent counsellor figures in the Greek camp, and their most prominent divine protector, but also a potential rebel and the approbation of the ordinary troops. Such an expansion of perspective and scale is precisely what we should expect at the start of this poem; consider only the Catalogues of Ships and Trojan allies later in Book 2, or the duel between Menelaus and Paris in Book 3, and the oath-breaking in Book 4. Thus, the basic movement behind the Diapeira is an entirely typical part of the poet’s repertoire, and its extension is completely in keeping with the Iliad’s strategy of reactivating the war as a whole. But one could still argue that it’s a strange way to get an army into the field, rather than actually just telling them to get into the field. This is where the second typical background for the Diapeira – the ‘testing with words’ (πειρᾶσθαι + ἐπε-) theme28 – becomes important, 28 Cf. 2.71–4 (Agamemnon to the basileis about the army): πρῶτα δ’ ἐγὼν ἔπεσιν πειρήσομαι, ἣ θέμις ἐστί, | καὶ φεύγειν σὺν νηυσὶ πολυκλήϊσι κελεύσω· | ὑμεῖς δ’ ἄλλοθεν ἄλλος ἐρητύειν ἐπέεσσιν; 4.5–6 (Zeus to Hera): αὐτίκ’ ἐπειρᾶτο Κρονίδης ἐρεθιζέμεν Ἥρην | κερτομίοις ἐπέεσσι παραβλήδην ἀγορεύων; Od. 24.239–40 (Odysseus to Laertes): ὧδε δέ οἱ φρονέοντι δοάσσατο κέρδιον εἶναι, | πρῶτον κερτομίοισ’ ἔπεσιν διαπειρηθῆναι. These three examples are used as our principal cases, once more, because they are particularly clear and prominent, but cf. also Il. 8.8–9 (Zeus to the other gods): μήτέ τις οὖν θήλεια θεὸς τό γε μήτέ τις ἄρσην | πειράτω διακέρσαι ἐμὸν ἔπος; 9.344–5 (Achilles to the ambassadors): νῦν δ’ ἐπεὶ ἐκ χειρῶν γέρας εἵλετο καί μ’ ἀπάτησε | μή μευ πειράτω εὖ εἰδότος· οὐδέ με πείσει; Od. 9.281 (Odysseus narrating Polyphemus’ trick): ὣς φάτο πειράζων, ἐμὲ δ’ οὐ λάθεν εἰδότα πολλά; Od. 15.304–6 (Odysseus among his servants in Eumaius’ hut): τοῖς δ’ Ὀδυσεὺς μετέειπε, συβώτεω πειρητίζων, | ἤ μιν ἔτ’ ἐνδυκέως φιλέοι μεῖναί τε κελεύοι | αὐτοῦ ἐνὶ σταθμῷ ἦ ὀτρύνειε πόλινδε·; Od. 19.215 (Penelope to the ‘stranger’):

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for in these circumstances the speaker deceitfully attempts to provoke a reaction by suggesting the opposite of the truth, and in doing so manipulates the circumstance to his own ends. Consider Zeus’ teasing of Athena and Hera at the start of Iliad Book 4, where he jokingly suggests ending the war, provoking an outraged response, before he confirms that Troy is indeed to fall (30–49); or Odysseus’ testing of Laertes in Odyssey 24, where he provokes considerable paternal anguish before confirming to the old man that his son has in fact returned home (318–48).29 The narrative then proceeds in the direction established before the ‘test’, but the speaker also derives a more oblique advantage: without conceding his control over the direction of the war, Zeus forces a concession from Hera that he may sack any of her favourite cities whenever he wants (4.39–42, 50–56), and the truce is broken up; Odysseus reveals himself to Laertes and the recognition pattern then continues, but he also tricks his father into an emotional reaction, and then – after passing the test set by his father about the veracity of his encounter-story (287–92, 303–14) – immediately reverses their position in the dialogic process. Having just deceived his father by proving the fake persona, Odysseus then abruptly reverses the direction of their encounter by offering his identity and its tokens (320–46).30 In each case the narrative proceeds as the speaker intended, but with his authority over interlocutor and situation greatly, if indirectly, reinforced. The associations of this theme feed into the deceptive nature of the entire circumstance in the Diapeira, but also key the audience into the implication of an oblique advantage. Of course the most obvious deception is that aimed at the troops: Agamemnon pretends to want something from them other than that which he does. But here we should recognise that a major point of the episode – from Agamemnon’s point of view, at least – is to make sure his several commanders react in the correct manner, as he says explicitly (ὑμεῖς δ’ ἄλλοθεν ἄλλος ἐρητύειν ἐπέεσσιν, 2.75). Agamemnon is talking about

(footnote 28 continued) ἐξαῦτίς μιν ἔπεσσιν ἀμειβομένη προσέειπε· | νῦν μὲν δή σευ ξεῖνέ γ’ ὀΐω πειρήσεσθαι κτλ.; cf. also Latacz 2003: ad 2.73, 30. 29 R. Knox and Russo 1989: 352 mention this parallel for the Diapeira, but dismiss it as ‘a peculiar and intimate expression of Odysseus’ character’ opposed to Agamemnon’s ‘rule’ (on which error, cf. above, n. 22). I suggest that the psychological subtlety seen in Homer’s depiction of Odysseus’ character should not be precluded from his construction of Agamemnon. 30 As he generally does for the male members of his household. For recent discussion with further bibliography, cf. Kelly 2012: 10. Revelation and recognition in the Odyssey are always a matter of contest, and Odysseus ‘defeats’ his father in their encounter.

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basileutic intervention after his injunctions to the army to flee, and so at the very least he countenances the army’s flight to the ships. Focus falls here on the action of the basileis, and their willingness to support Agamemnon’s enterprise, within the general deception of the army provided by his subsequent address. After the open challenge to the expedition’s power structure in the very public quarrel of Book 1, the need for a display of the support from the other basileis is surely rather important, as Erwin Cook has most recently argued.31 So Agamemnon wants to get the Greek army up and running for the renewed fighting in response to the Dream he has been sent by Zeus, but he also wants the basileis publicly working for him towards that end, and this is precisely what – eventually – happens.32 Therefore, the Diapeira combines two entirely typical narrative themes: (1) ‘suggestion of retreat’, which focuses on the way in which the suggestion fails, and (2) ‘testing with words’, which works by reversing the addressee’s (i.e. the troops’) expectations, and suggests some indirect advantage beneath the surface of the encounter. The superficial paradox of the first theme is lessened by its universal consequence (failure to flee), and then resolved in the deceptive currents underlying the second. Together, they produce the desired result: the Greek army ready for action, with its power structures strained but apparently re-established. This is a unique combination of those two themes in the Iliad, and one which produces an extremely fruitful and entirely natural reading of the episode’s function.33 The Diapeira does not, therefore, require what seems to be a minor, differently purposed, differently focused episode from another, probably later text, in another language, as its explanation.34 The sources of the scene’s 31 Cook 2003. 32 It must, however, be signficant that it is only Odysseus of the other princes who eventually – after Athena’s intervention – steps in to stop the retreat. M. L. West 2011: 103 takes this as grounds for thinking the Diapeira an intrusion into an earlier version (cf. above, n. 15) because it adumbrates the unfulfilled involvement of others, but their failure to get involved is surely deliberate, and an important index of Agamemnon’s rather troubled authority within the camp, not a hint of an earlier layer of composition which has been inadequately concealed; cf. also below, n. 34. 33 In any case, we have indeed reached a very strange pass if we think that Homer was only able to reproduce the precisely paralleled elements in his poetic inheritance, and never to recombine them in new ways. Homeric individuality should not be cast aside so lightly. 34 Within his theory of a broader interpolation (cf. above, nn. 15 and 32), M. L. West 2011: 103 writes that the proposal is ‘paradoxical’ because, first, ‘it is ignored in Nestor’s speech and in much of the later narrative’. However, why must it be mentioned in Nestor’s speech (and cf. now Nünlist 2012 on Nestor’s many tactful silences; for him (153) ‘this is a deliberate omission on Nestor’s part’), and how many mentions does it need? Odysseus, after all, does explicitly refer to it when

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c­ onstituent elements can be found entirely within the formular tradition of early Greek epic poetry, and the narrative makes complete sense within that tradition. In conclusion, I would suggest that the Diapeira and Gideon’s test from the Book of Judges are entirely unrelated, their similarities fortuitous and vastly overplayed. Beyond this narrow demonstration, what does this case suggest about comparative study pursued for genealogical ends? First, let us not be too quick to see flaws or problems in a Homeric episode (vel sim.) where there are only interpretative opportunities and challenges. Second, we should look more closely at parallels within the long Homeric tradition to help explain the construction and sense of said episode, before we go searching elsewhere for answers. Third, when we do go elsewhere, let us be sure that the parallel is actually that – a real parallel. Finally, we must then be certain that it makes sense to link the texts involved, in terms of both date and scale. In short, it is time to stop assuming external sources as the first explanation for a Homeric ‘problem’. Genealogy can be a fun game, but – to pursue the metaphor – definitive proof can only established through the subject’s DNA. BATTLE NARRATIVE AND ANALOGY This section of the chapter will attempt to demonstrate the ‘Greekness’ of Homer, in itself an almost impossible task, but made more difficult because it involves surveying and summarising almost two thousand years’ worth of non-Greek narrative traditions, spread across several literary traditions. Three caveats are required at the outset: (1) it cannot claim anything like the same familiarity with the ANE materials;35 (2) it will summarise, with no proper consideration of the individual particularities or forms of the ANE texts, their main differences from Homer’s battle representations; and (3) it is not limited to traditions hitherto defined by scholars as ‘epic’, largely because there is little agreement on the usefulness of such a term in the non-Greek



(footnote 34 continued) rebuking the chieftains at 2.192–4 (οὐ γάρ πω σάφα οἶσθ’ οἷος νόος Ἀτρεΐωνος· | νῦν μὲν πειρᾶται, τάχα δ’ ἴψεται υἷας Ἀχαιῶν | ἐν βουλῇ δ’ οὐ πάντες ἀκούσαμεν οἷον ἔειπεν) and it is clear that Agamemnon has miscalculated (cf. Odysseus’ tactful reference to it at 2.252–3: οὐδέ τί πω σάφα ἴδμεν ὅπως ἔσται τάδε ἔργα, | ἢ εὖ ἦε κακῶς νοστήσομεν υἷες Ἀχαιῶν). Second, according to West, ‘it is never explained to the army that they were being tested’. Again, why should we expect it to be so explained? The army is never given a clear view into the decision-making processes of their leaders, as Odysseus explains to his several addressees in this very episode (2.200–6, 246–7 etc.). 35 I am particularly indebted to Christopher Metcalf for help with this material.

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context.36 This section lays no claim to anything like a definitive coverage, and it should be read principally as an invitation, especially to specialists in the several fields addressed, to continue the project. The argument pursued here is that battle is a common theme in the texts37 of the ANE, but that the techniques and emphasis of Homeric battle representation cannot be paralleled in any meaningful way in those traditions. There are isolated examples of episodic and thematic similarity, but the differences are enormous, and they can be summed up simply: Homer narrativises and aestheticises battle in a way, and to an extent, not found in ANE traditions. That is, battle is a subject of its own narrative and interest in Homeric poetry, and in fact serves as the dramatic backdrop for much of the Iliad. The poet expends a great deal of energy on battle narrative, and is obviously dealing with an audience who found descriptions of combat pleasing and interesting in themselves.38 There is only space here for the briefest sketch of Homer’s practice, but consider, first, how much of the poem is concerned with, or set during, battle: from the end of Book 4 (if we exclude all the introductory elements in Books 2 and 3) all the way to the end of Book 22, the poet constructs his narrative against a backdrop of continuous fighting. Whilst there are episodes around and between periods of fighting, the battle itself is now the continuous context of the Iliad’s actions during this period. Moreover, the poem is actually structured around the four battle days (A: 2.1–7.380/B: 8.1–9.713 or 10.579 || B2: 11.1–18.617/A2: 19.1–23.108), with the actions of the first and fourth (A and A2) mirroring one another, as do the actions of the second and third (B and B2), but with noticeable disparities in scale, as Tables 3.1 and 3.2 make clear. In this respect, battle is also a vehicle of meaning: compare the fighting and achievements of Diomedes on the first day with those of Achilles on the fourth, and one sees the tremendous differences between the potentialities of those characters, and the progression in the Iliad’s plot. Similarly, consider the dynamics between the second and third battle days: the second day prepares for the third, 36 On the vexed question of genre in the ANE, cf. Hallo [1975] 2010a: 57–84; Westenholz 1997: 17–24; Holm 2007; Sasson 2005, esp. 218–20; cf. also the individual essays by Michalowski, Westenholz, Gilan and Niditch in Konstan and Raaflaub 2010. 37 There is simply not the space here to treat visual traditions, though I have not come across a single example that either depicts the ‘enemy’ triumphing over the home team, or suggests that anything more than victory was important. 38 This is clear, above all, in the highly traditional and stylised manner of battle scene composition, on which several scholars have written in great depth; cf. Albracht [1886–95] 2005; Fenik 1968; M. Mueller 2009: 76–101.

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Table 3.1  The first (A) and fourth (A2) days of battle 1. Daylight preparation    •  A: Assemblies and catalogues   •  A2: Assembly and arming scene (Achilles) 2. Delayed joining (narration) of battle    •  A: Duel between Menelaus and Paris, and its consequences (3.15–4.445)   • A2: Preparation for the theomachia (20.4–75) 3. Single figure drives the narrative (A: Diomedes | A2: Achilles) 4. Single figure aided by Athena (A: against Aeneas and Pandarus | A2: against Hector) 5. Single figure fights deities (A: Aphrodite/Ares | A2: Scamander) 6. Single figure almost fights Apollo protecting a Trojan (A: Aeneas | A2: Agenor) 7. Deities fight one another (A: Athena/Ares | A2: theomachia) 8. Successful duel with Hector closes the battle (A: Ajax versus Hector | A2: Achilles versus Hector) 9. Closed by two-day funeral scenes (Greek and Trojan dead | Patroclus)    •  A: Gathering and burning of corpses (7.381–432)    •  A: Construction of the wall (7.433–482)   •  A2: Mourning and burning Patroclus (23.109–225)   •  A2: Deposition and funeral games (23.226–57/257f.)

introducing its major actions and general plight, but with significant differences on the third which help to underline, once more, how the plot progresses towards its goal. Indeed, the entire poem seems to be structured around this alternation. Battle narrative does not seem to have been used in this way, or to have played this role, in the varied literary traditions of the ANE.39 Standard surveys of military tactics and strategy across and within those traditions constantly note the lack of detail about the actual engagements.40 As a first example, consider the Hebrew Bible, where fighting tends to be dealt with very swiftly, frequently without any or 39 That this is true across such a breadth of contiguous cultures, over such a period of time, makes the exceptionalism of Homer and the Greek epic tradition seem all the more pronounced in the Mediterannean and Mesopotamian context; cf. below, n. 72, for brief speculation as to its origin. 40 Cf., e.g., Yadin 1963; Younger 1990; Hamblin 2006. For statements concentrating on individual traditions, cf., e.g., Younger 1990: 89 on the Assyrians: ‘actual combat . . . is infrequent’ and 124: ‘actual combat . . . is normally passed over’; Gilan 2010: 60 on the Hittites: ‘our survey of the material suggests that the ancient authors and their audiences found no delight whatsoever in juicy, bloody depictions of “heroic” military actions and battle scenes . . . Interestingly, Hittite historiography too . . . lacks battle scenes . . . depictions of the military actions themselves are rare and scanty’; Janzen 1972: 162 on the Hebrew: ‘Israel did not glorify death in war. There are no cenotaphs in the Old Testament. Strangely absent are also the hero stories that fill the Homeric epics, or the tendentious accounts of successful campaigns that fill the monuments of Egyptian and

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Table 3.2  The second (B) and third (B2) days of battle 1. Zeus on Mt Ida isolated from other gods (B: 8.41–52 | B2: 11.78–83, 181–4) 2. Initial Greek success followed by Trojan gains 3. Teucer and Telamonian Ajax fight as a pair until counteraction from Hector    • B: Against Hector (8.266–334); Teucer wounded by Hector (322–34), who attacks (335f.)   •  B2: Against (a) Sarpedon (12.370–436)/Hector attacks (437f.)   •  B2: Against (b) Hector (15.442–83); Teucer’s bowstring broken by Zeus (15.463–5) and Hector attacks (484f.) 4. Diomedes faces down Hector, prevented from following up    • B: Thunderbolts from Zeus (8.117–29/130ff.)   •  B2: Wounded by Paris (11.349–68/369ff.) 5. Hera joins forces with another deity to counteract Trojan success – unsuccessfully    • B: With Athena (8.350–96)   •  B2: With Hypnos (and Poseidon) (14.153–361) 6. Zeus openly threatens recalcitrant pair    • B: Athena and Hera – delivered by Iris (8.461–84)   •  B2: Hera – delivered by Zeus himself (15.13–78); Poseidon – by Iris (15.157–219) 7. Hector worsted by major Greek hero in battle    • B: Diomedes (8.116–29)   •  B2: Diomedes (11.310–60) and Telamonian Ajax (14.402–32) 8. Paris wounds important Greek with a bow    • B: Nestor(’s horse) (8.81–2)   •  B2: Diomedes (11.369–78), Machaon (11.505–7) and Eurypylus (11.581–4) 9. Play ends with Trojans on plain, in assembly led by Hector (B: 8.489–542 | B2: 18.243–313)    • B: Hector only speaker (8.493–541)   •  B2: Polydamas speaks first and suggests retreat, Hector contradicts (18.284–313)

perhaps just one episode individuated within the whole encounter.41 In the military career of Saul as told in the First Book of Samuel, for instance, there are four individual battles with Israel’s enemies in which he is commander (and several more in which the lead is taken by David) and some general description of his constant warring. None of the encounters receives more than token coverage.42 Instead, the Assyrian monarchs’; cf. also Crouch 2009: 76. For a recent introduction to the study of ANE warfare (excluding Egypt), cf. S. F. C. Richardson 2011. 41 This has not prevented scholars from making claims about a direct relationship between the Homeric and the Hebrew traditions on this point; cf., e.g., Gordon 1967; de Vaux 1972; Niditch 1993: 104–5; Hamblin 2006. Frolov and Wright 2011 sunder the Homeric link in favour of older ANE traditions, and Taylor 2007: 24–7 looks to the later books of the Hebrew Bible for evidence of the influence of Homeric battle narrative. For more general studies of battle in the Hebrew Bible, cf. esp. Niditch 1993; Berman 2004; Crouch 2009: 65–118, 156–90. 42 Cf. 11.11 (first battle): ‘The next day Saul put the people in three companies. At the morning watch they came into the camp and cut down the Ammonites until

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i­nterest lies in what happens before or after battle: the skirmish which begins the third battle, a victorious encounter with the Philistines (14.1–15), focuses much more on Jonathan’s ruse than the actual contact; when Saul destroys the Amalekites in his fourth battle (15), far more time is spent on the issue of what happens to the cattle and sheep, and the initial sparing of their King Agag, than what actually happened on the field of battle or, rather, how it had happened; even Saul’s sixth and final battle is over before the author decides to give any details, in this case his suicide (31). Here, and generally in this portion of the Hebrew Bible, the concern of the author is with other things. The snippets of battle serve a wider purpose, to set the success and failure of Israel in a causational and historical relationship with the divine, while Joshua Berman has recently shown that the battles tend to follow non-battle narratives to exemplify their lessons or morals.43 Narrative sophistication is not at stake here, of course, merely narrative scale and interest. Brevity is indeed the watchword generally in ANE representations of battle, and one of the big debates focuses on the journal style (Tagesbuchstil) of many of these sources, which says much about their ‘battle aesthetic’. Thus, for instance, the Biblical historical narratives are sometimes said to combine heroic traditions (i.e. interesting stories) with the Tagesbücher or Kriegsberichte.44 These influential sources have stylised ways to talk about battle, but they do not exploit the drama of battle exchanges. Instead, typical themes include the exchange of diplomatic correspondence between the king and the transgressive figure, the summoning of forces (both friendly and otherwise), the invasion of the recalcitrant country followed by its swift defeat (usually with the aid of the gods who go before the king into

(footnote 42 continued) the heat of the day; and those who survived were scattered, so that no two of them were left together.’ The rest of his military career is similarly summaristic, and entwined with David’s: 13.3 (second battle), 14.20–3 (third battle), 14.47–8 (general summary of his whole career), 15.7–8 (fourth battle), 17.51–2 (fifth battle, after the slaying of Goliath), 18.30 (David’s early career), 19.8 (David’s first battle), 23.5 (David’s second battle), 27.8–9 (David’s third battle), 30.16–18 (David’s fourth battle), 31.1–7 (Saul’s sixth battle); cf. Gunn 1974: 288, and 293: ‘Moreover the rather terse sequence, in markedly circumscribed language, occurs in the face of some important variables, viz. the relative length and particular details of the stories in which it occurs’ (my italics). 43 Berman 2004; cf. also Kang 1989. Hamblin 2006: 12 takes this as characteristic of the ANE: ‘war was the means by which the gods restored cosmic order through organized violence undertaken in their name by their divinely ordained kings’ (his italics). 44 Cf. Hoffmeier 2002: xxiv. On the role of this kind of source in Egyptian texts, cf. Younger 1990: 168–75, and in Neo-Assyrian, cf. Frahm 1997: 251–7.

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battle), the siege of the capital, which results in either flight or death for the enemy, and the imposition of tribute or political order of some sort. Kenneth Lawson Younger’s comprehensive and definitive study of these sequences in Assyrian, Hittite, Egyptian and Hebrew traditions reveals that combat – though sufficiently common to be considered a typical element – is by some way the briefest, least exampled and emphasised feature across the traditions.45 Just as a sample of the limited range of narrative features, consider the following Akkadian texts. In a poem with multiple versions and a transmission history of well over a thousand years (beginning in the second millennium bce), and promisingly named Sargon King of Battle, Sargon of Akkad’s victory over his enemy Nur-daggal is over in double-quick time.46 The bulk of the poem consists of the preceding lengthy encounter with merchants who encouraged Sargon’s expedition, and the following extended speech of obeisance delivered by Nur-daggal after his defeat.47 The course of the fighting is just unimportant; what matters is the fact of victory.48 The Tukulti-Ninurta Epic (thirteenth century bce) shows much the same sort of scalar disparity, but at least it describes the fighting: several preparatory diplomatic exchanges occur between the protagonist Assyrian king and his enemy Kashtilias (a Kassite ruler of Babylon), but once more lots of general preparation and the sending of messages. The battle between them is continually delayed by this means, then a skirmish is fought in generalised terms before the final battle,49 in which Tukulti-Ninurta himself manages to kill a nameless foe.50 Finally, the Hymn to Tiglath-Pileser 45 Cf. Younger 1990: 79–80, e.g., but passim; also above, n. 40. The same point is made in Van der Deijl 2008, esp. 643–4, but seemingly in ignorance of Younger’s work. 46 ‘Nur-daggal had not finished speaking | when Sargon dug into (?) his city, | he widened the Gate of Nobles two field-lengths! | He threw it down, he slashed through the top of its ramparts, | he smote the most outstanding of the general’s men!’ (Foster 2005: III B 7 (a), 341). For the many other poems about Sargon, all of which show the same brevity when it comes to battle narrative, cf. Westenholz 1997: 57–140; Foster 2005: I B 3 (a)–(b), 57–8; II B 6 (a), 107–12, III B 7 (a), 338–43. 47 Westenholz 1997: 102–40; Foster 2005: III 7 (a), 338–43. 48 Cf. also the equally popular stories of Naram-Sin; cf. Westenholz 1997: 173–368; Foster 2005: I B 3 (c) 59–62; II B 7 (a), 115–21; III B 7 (b), 344–56. 49 ‘The valiant warriors of Assur espied | the Kassite kings’ preparations, | they did not have their armour on, | but sprang forward like lions, | Assur’s unrivalled weapon met the onslaught of [his] ar[my?] | and Tukulti-Ninurta, the raging, pitiless storm, | made [their blood] flow. | The warriors of Assur [struck] the king of the Kassites | like a serpent, | A mighty attack, an irresistible onslaught [ ] upon them’ (Foster 2005: III A 1, 311–12). 50 ‘The lines of battle were drawn up, | combat was joined on the battlefield. | There was great commotion, | the troops were quivering among them. | Assur went first, | the conflagration of defeat burst out upon the enemy, | Enlil was whirling in the

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I (1115–1077 bce) places battle much more to the fore, and yet the same lack of precision or interest in combat description beyond the stereotypical is evident: first the enemies rebel, then the king decides to destroy them and prepares his forces; the gods enter the battle and deal the usual rain of death in support of the Assyrian king; the Assyrians win and the poem breaks off with ‘the mountains submitted fully to Assur’.51 The brevity we see in the Akkadian sources is no less remarkable than its tenacity and ubiquity in other traditions.52 This contrasts powerfully with the Homeric battle scenes, their length and their poikilia – the sheer variety of narrative styles, techniques and units expended on combat, and how they are combined and recombined in order to create something new every time. Individual



(footnote 50 continued) midst of the foe, | fanning the blaze, | Anu set a pitiless mace to the opponent . . . [etc. etc.] . . . Behind the gods, his allies, | the king at the head of the army sets to battle, | He let fly an arrow, the fierce, overwhelming, | crushing weapon of Assur, | he felled one slain. | The warriors of Assur cried ‘To battle!’ as they went to face death, | They gave the battle cry, “O Ishtar, spare (me)!” | and praised the mistress in the fray | without any armour, | They had stripped off their breastplates, | discarded their clothing, | They tied up their hair and polished (?) their weapons, | The fierce, heroic men danced with sharpened weapons. | They roared at one another like struggling lions, | with eyes aflash (?), While the fray, particles drawn in a whirlwind, | swirled around in combat’ (Foster 2005: III A 1, 313–14). 51 ‘Stationed behind them [i.e. the typical list of gods doing their battle work], he was raining down weaponry. | Daily he set devastation upon them’ (Foster 2005: III A 3, 326). This absolute and relative brevity continues in the Neo-Assyrian tradition: cf. Shalmaneser III’s Campaign to Urartu (Livingstone 1989: 17, 44–7 at 46) or the Defeat of Teumman and the Annexation of Elam (Livingstone 1989: 31, 67–8 at 67), whilst in a whole series of (admittedly, badly damaged) texts (Livingstone 1989: 18–24, 48–53) there is no battle narrative at all; cf. Younger 1990: 79–122 for many more examples. 52 In the Sumerian tradition, cf. the very swift defeat of the King of Akka in Gilgamesh and Akka (COS 1.171.95–9), or the conquests of Urnanshe of Lagash (c. 2495–2475 bce) (Cooper 1986: La 1.6, 25): ‘[Urnanshe, king of Lagash] went to war against the leader of Ur and the leader of Umma: | The leader of Lagash (r.ii) defeated the leader of Ur. He captured [etc. etc.] | (r.iii) . . . He defeated the leader of Umma. (r.iv) He captured [etc. etc.].’ For his grandson Eanatum’s ‘Stela of the Vultures’, cf. below, n. 60, but cf. also Eanatum’s shorter narratives of conquest (Cooper 1986: La 3.2–10, 39–45) as well as those of his descendants Enanatum (Cooper 1986: La 4.2, 47–8), Enmetana (Cooper 1986: La 5.1, 54–7) and Urukagina (Cooper 1986: La 9.5, 78–9), all of which also elide the narrative of battle in favour of its (plundering vel sim.) outcome. For the Hittite royal traditions, cf., e.g., the short battle of Harashu in The Queen of Kanesh and the tale of Zalpa (COS 1.71, 181–2), and several brief encounters and ambushes in the Deeds of Suppililiuma (COS 1.74, 185–92), the Annals of Mursili II (COS 2.16, 82–90) etc. (COS 1.75–7, 192–204); for the typical structure of Hittite narrative, cf. Younger 1990: 132–6, and 137–73 for many more examples; cf. also Gilan 2010. The same brevity can be observed in the Ugaritic sources, e.g., the Epic of Kirta (COS 1.102, 333–43), pace the list of similarities with Homeric motifs in Gordon 1967: 46–55.

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elements therein can be paralleled in the ANE,53 as with arming scenes or duels, which may be found between David and Goliath, Marduk and Tiamat in the Akkadian Enuma Elis, or Humbaba, Gilgamesh and Enkidu in the Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh – though the fighting is itself very brief, and much more time is spent on the journey to find Humbaba, and speeches between the three as they prepare for the combat, and then deal with its aftermath.54 Indeed, if we consider the conflicts between Ninurta and Azag in the Sumerian Ninurta Epic (Black et al. 2004: 163–80), between Ninurta and Anzu in the Babylonian Anzu (COS 3.147), between the Hittite Storm God and Illuyanka (COS 1.56), between Anat and Aqhat in the Ugaritic Epic of Aqhat (COS 1.103), and between Yammu and Baal in the Ugaritic Epic of Baal (COS 1.86), it becomes clear that elaborated conflict between named and characterised adversaries seems much more popular in the ANE when applied to gods or clearly mythological figures.55 But once more the hugely greater scale, multiplication and detail of Homeric battle are clear, especially in those tales explicitly dealing with mortals. In the Egyptian Tale of Sinuhe (early second millennium bce) for instance, there is just one detailed combat,56 with very little elaboration or drama, and reticence about detailed combat narrative is constantly in evidence in other Egyptian sources. There are exceptions to this, notably the thirteenth-century bce poem commemorating the involvement of Ramesses II (r. 1279–13 bce) in the battle of Qadesh (1274 bce), which contains a great deal of generalised combat description as the king – all alone! – kills and drives his enemies from the field, but no one else on either side kills anyone, and there is no reciprocity or variety in the king’s progress (COS 2.5A). (See Table 3.3.) Despite its greater length, this text is not interested in exploiting the battle for any purpose other than to show the invincibility of the isolated king, though at least here we do find a relatively long narrative about his achievements on the field, with speeches and some limited

53 Cf. above, n. 12. 54 Cf. Gilgamesh Tablet III–IV SBV for the journey, Tablet V.131–43 for the confrontation itself (George 2003: 602–15). 55 Kang 1989: 23–42 relates this to the role of theological justification in ANE warfare. 56 ‘He came toward me while I waited, having placed myself near him . . . (fearful reactions) . . . He his battle axe and shield, while his armful of missiles fell toward me. When I had made his weapons attack me, I let his arrows pass by me without effect, one following the other. Then, when he charged me, I shot him, my arrow sticking in his neck. He screamed; he fell on his nose; I slew him with his axe. I raised my war cry over his back, while every Asiatic shouted’ (COS 1.38, 79).

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Table 3.3  Ramesses II in the battle of Qadesh 1–56 [Preparations for battle, Ramesses’ qualities and advance into Syria] 56–74 [Ramesses alone ambushed by Hittites] 75–91 [Ramesses attacks] * ‘Then His Majesty set forth at a gallop, he plunged into the midst of the forces of the Hittite foe, he being entirely on his own, no one else with him.’ 92–127 [Ramesses complains to Amun, who comes to aid him] 128–42 ‘My heart I found strong, my mind joyful, All I did came off well, I was just like Montu. I shot to my right, and captured to my left, I was like Seth in his moment, in their sight. I found that the 2,500 chariots (of the Hittites), in whose midst I was, fell prostrate before my horses . . . I slaughtered them just as I wished, none looked behind him, no other turned around, whoever of them fell, he did not rise again.’ 143–65 [Hittites attack once more; Ramesses counters; no one can face him] * ‘I launched myself against them, being like Montu; I gave them a taste of my fist in the space of a moment. I wrought mayhem among them, slain on the spot . . .’ 166–204 [Ramesses continues the attack, calls to his troops rebuking them] 205–13 [Menna the shield-bearer counsels retreat] 214–23 [Ramesses refuses, counterattacks] * ‘Then his Majesty set off quickly, and he went off at a gallop, into the midst of the foe, for the sixth time of attacking them. I was like Baal in the moment of his power, I did not let up.’ 224–50 [Egyptian army comes up and praises Ramesses] 251–76 [Ramesses rebukes them] 277–320 [Ramesses renews battle, the Hittite king submits] * ‘When dawn came, I marshalled the battle line in the fight, I was prepared to fight like an eager bull. I appeared against them like Montu, arrayed in the accoutrements of valour and victory. I entered into the battle lines, fighting like the pounce of a falcon, [etc. etc.] . . . thereupon my Majesty seized them, killing among them, without letting up, sprawled before my horses, lying together in their own blood.’ 321–30 [Close of the fight]

character interaction, notably with Menna the shield-bearer.57 Given that it was written in Ramesses’ honour, of course, it is not unreasonable that the poem should draw him in such positive and victorious terms. A variety of other Egyptian texts reflect the same royalist influence and focus,58 which can also be seen in the way in which the 57 The greater ‘poetic’ freedom of some Egyptian narratives like the Qadesh poem is discussed by Younger 1990: 168–76, 189–93. 58 Cf., e.g., the battle of Megiddo in the Annals of Thutmose III (COS 2.2.84b–89), in which displacement of the forces takes more space than the eventual combat (‘Then his majesty overpowered them while leading his army. They saw his majesty overpower them. They fled . . . ’), or the several swift battles in the Gebel Barka Stela of Thutmose III (COS 2.2B), in which the personal might of the pharoah is always the determinative factor; cf. also COS 2.2C–4G, 2.7 (the Victory Stela of

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motif of the dominant warrior-king is found even in inscriptions of subordinates, such as Ahmose of Nekheb (fl. mid-sixteenth century bce), whose description of the several battles he fought contains only one individual victory – the pharaoh’s.59 The ruler’s invincibility is thematised much earlier, in a Sumerian inscription of Eanatum (the Stele of the Vultures), a king of Lagash in the third millennium bce, who wins the day despite being wounded,60 and much later, when the seventh-century bce Assyrian king Sennacherib describes his achievements in similarly unselfconscious ways. His Annals are particularly rich in description, with similes, an arming scene etc., but once more it is an ego-list of achievements – no drama, no alteration or alternation, just the inevitable manifestation of the king’s immanent excellence, moral justification and personal brutality (columns V–VI of the Chicago Prism).61 (See Table 3.4.) This theme of personal royal dominance is met again and again across the traditions, for instance in the Neo-Assyrian Eighth Campaign of Sargon II (721–705 bce) or Expedition to Urartu of Shalmaneser III (858–824 bce),62 but never again with this kind of narrative detail. Compare these stories with their closest Homeric analogue, the aristeia, as exemplified in Diomedes’ course across the battlefield in Iliad 5 and 6. Here the poet combines general descriptions of his progress with a series of single encounters in which he is victorious, his wounding and the interruption of his victories, the summoning of the god to King Piye) for many other examples, and Baines 1998 for the underpinning ideology. The survey of Partridge 2002 disproves his own contention that these sources are ‘full’ of combat details; cf. Younger 1990: 165–95. 59 ‘His majesty raged like a panther . . . his majesty fired his first arrow, sticking in the neck of that enemy. Then these enemies fled, weakened by his Uraeus which in a moment turned them into carnage’ (COS 2.1.29b–35). Royal dominance is also reflected in the common artistic motif of the pharoah holding a mace in one hand and a defeated foe by the hair in the other; cf. Partridge 2002: 1–2 and passim. 60 ‘He fought with him. A person shot an arrow at Eanatum. He was shot through by the arrow and had difficulty moving. He cried out in the face of it. The person . . . ’ (Cooper 1986: La 3.1 (ix), 33–9). This is only a tiny part of the stele, and Eanatum obviously survived the wound, as the rest (i.e. vast majority) of the narrative has him receiving the allegiance of the defeated king of Umma; cf. Hamblin 2006: 52–9. 61 Luckenbill 1924: 44–7. It is interesting to note that this prism was not for public display (a fact which seems to have escaped most classicists who use this material); cf. Frahm 1997: 36 on Sennacherib’s inscriptions generally, which ‘sollten erst dann wieder ans Tageslicht kommen, wenn ein späterer Herrscher im Zuge von Renovierungsarbeiten die jeweilige Baulichkeit ganz oder teilweise abreißen ließ’; Frahm goes on to quote from the Chicago prism itself a passage (VI.76–8) which actually says this (I am indebted to Christopher Metcalf for this reference). Though the current chapter has generally ignored Sitz im Leben for reasons of space, it is important for anyone trying to draw lines between the texts. 62 Foster 2005: IV A 2 (c) 125–44, 790–813 (798); IV A 1 (a) 47, 779–82 (781).

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Table 3.4  The achievements of Sennacherib V.60 ‘They blocked my passage and offered me battle.’ 61–7 [gods come to his aid] 68–75 [arming scene] 76–81 ‘At the word of Assur, the great Lord, my Lord, on flank and front, | I pressed upon the enemy like the onset of a raging storm. | With the weapons of Assur, my Lord, and the terrible onset of my attack, | I stopped their advance, I succeeded in surrounding them, | I decimated the enemy host with arrow and spear. | All of their bodies I bored through like – ’ 82–VI.9 [victorious advance of the king’s chariot]63 9–16 ‘With the bodies of their warriors | I filled the plain, like grass. (Their) testicles I cut off, and tore out their privates like the seeds | of cucumbers of Siwan. Their hands I cut off. [etc. etc.]’ 16–23 [capture and killing of rebellious nobles] 24–31 [flight of the kings of Elam, Babylon and princes of Chaldea] *30–1 ‘They were beside themselves | they held back (?) their urine, but let their dung go into their chariots.’

heal him, and his re-entry into battle. Then the narrative focus moves away from him entirely for several hundred verses, with victories for Sarpedon and Hector, before returning to him in retreat before a god, his teaming up with Athena and his attack on Ares. His run of supremacy concludes in Book 6 with an aborted single combat, at the end of which he exchanges guest gifts with the Lycian Glaucus. In this extended narrative, the audience follows the above all-changeable course of Diomedes’ progress over the battlefield; it is not simply a victorious moment in which his might is evinced, or even a series of such moments described in a variety of ways as in the Qadesh poem or the Annals of Sennacherib,64 though of course Diomedes’ superiority is important. Instead, it is the narrativised course of this trial of strength, the to and fro of his successes and setbacks, and those of the other Greeks and Trojans, which the poet seems interested in, not ‘just the facts, ma’am’ or – better – ‘just the propaganda, ma’am’. Even in a case 63 Burkert 1992: 118–19 suggests this as a parallel for Il. 20.498–501, where Achilles’ chariot is stained with the blood of corpses as it rides over them, though here (p. 119) ‘one might even toy with the idea that some Greek singer had arrived in Assyria together with the mercenaries, and that he composed this song . . . which so much pleased the king that it was incorporated in the official annals, where it forms a strange contrast to the standard dreary and dull list of battle and plundering’ (my italics). This is an adventurous thesis, but at least it shows how isolated this narrative is in its Assyrian context. 64 It is remarkable that the two battles celebrated in these rather unusual texts, Qadesh and Halule, were both stalemates or losses for the celebrating side; cf. Frahm 1997: 255 on the latter: ‘je kritischer die Lage, desto massiver die Propaganda’.

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like Achilles’ aristeia, in which no one else is said to enjoy a victory, the course of the fighting is tremendously varied and the battle is studded with individual episodes, such as the combat with the river, the encounter with Aeneas or the slaying of Lycaon, designed to elucidate the character of Achilles at this point in the poem. There is much greater depth and human purpose to his portrayal as victor than anything in the ANE sources. Even when they seem to rival the scale and intensity of Homeric battle, the Qadesh poem and the Annals of Sennacherib have nothing like its characterisational force or dramatic variety. So, too, with the depiction of the foe. In ANE texts, the single enemy usually remains a cipher, much less individuated than the Trojans. In the Tale of Sinuhe the enemy duellist is called simply the ‘hero of Retenu’, and Goliath is little more than arrogant sling-meat (First Book of Samuel 17), whilst in the Qadesh poem there are nameless Hittite and other victims, but no serious attempt to characterise or individuate them; they are there, generally, simply to be killed or overcome.65 Sometimes the foe is enshrined in the figure of the ruler, who usually has the attribute of moral brazenness in rebelling or doubting the power of the victor king, but who eventually comes back into the fold or dies in rebellion: Tukulti-Ninurta and Kashtiliash in the Tukulti-Ninurta Epic, Sargon and Nur-daggal in Sargon King of Battle, Sennacherib and Hezekiah and so on. Reflect now on the Homeric situation, and the way in which the Trojans and their allies throw up their fair share of admirable and pathetic characters in the moment and processes of combat; or consider the way in which sympathy is dredged up for even relatively nameless and unimportant victims during the course of the fighting, typically but not only through the brief biographies analysed long ago by C. R. Beye.66 Battle for Homer, in sum, is an interesting process in itself, with tremendous possibilities for the generation of – and alternation between – triumph and tragedy, victory and sympathy, the appreciation of the humanity and quality of the enemy. In the variously formed and preserved narrative traditions of the ANE, on the other hand, it is generally only the result which matters, almost to the entire exclusion of anything else.67 How do we explain this difference? Some argue that royal ideology 65 Cf. Younger 1990: 67–9 on Assyrian demonisation of the enemy, 128–30 on the Hittite attitude, 177–85 on the Egyptian, 233–6 on the Hebrew. 66 Beye 1964. 67 It is no coincidence, then, that ‘in the ancient Near Eastern conquest accounts, reports of casualties within one’s own army are rare . . . it is very common in these texts to describe the total annihiliation of the enemy’ (Younger 1990: 261).

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discouraged such a broadening of individual prowess in traditions where scribal authority and royal patronage were so important.68 We saw above how Ahmose of Nekheb, for example, described his own military career by reference to the personal might of the king. Yet there are countercases: for instance, in Nebuchadnezzar in Elam, a poetic narrative inscribed on a late second-millennium bce monument commemorating a series of land grants by the Babylonian king to one of his officers, Sitti-Marduk, the achievements of this faithful servant are celebrated,69 while an eighth-century bce Assyrian commander-in-chief, Samsi-ilu, lists his achievements in the typical way without making any mention whatsoever of his king (COS 2.115A, 278). Moreover, it is hard to see why the aristeia topos in the Qadesh poem or the Annals of Sennacherib, for all its differences from the Homeric form, should not be in more evidence in the royally dominated contexts of the ANE; if historical truth were generally an obstacle in these circumstances, then Ramesses and Sennacherib must have had extremely thick skins,70 and it does not explain why, for example, the popular and long-lived legends of the third-millennium Sargon of Akkad never include greater personal or heroic exploits at the moment of battle itself. Given that these narratives were designed to be supportive of monarch and monarchy, and they continued to be retold because they served that purpose, such a development would have made a great deal of sense. The impression one gets is that ANE verbal artists and their audiences, in several contexts, simply weren’t interested in lengthy, detailed combat narrative. Of course, we do not know as much as we would like about performance and dissemination of those traditions which we could properly or improperly call ‘epic’. Perhaps these too were intended in the first instance for royal or court audiences, or to propagate royal ideology, and other (maybe oral) narrative traditions have simply not 68 Cf., e.g., M. L. West 1997: 211. 69 ‘Sitti-Marduk, head of the house of Bit-Karziabku, whose chariot did not lag behind the king’s right flank, and who held his chariot ready, he feared no battle but went down to the enemy and went farthest in against the enemy of his lord. By the command of Ishtar and Adad, gods who are the lords of battle, he routed Hulteludish, king of Elam, he disappeared. Thus King Nebuchadnezzar triumphed, seized Elam, and plundered its possessions’ (Foster 2005: III C 12 (c), 383–5 at 384). 70 Cf. Baines 1998: 36 (on Amenhotep II’s athletic prowess): ‘contemporaries will have known that this could not be done and accepted either that their ruler had superhuman powers or that the matter was one of hyperbole where literal accuracy was irrelevant. What was important was that the king was beyond comparison with anyone else.’

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survived.71 In this sense, Homer’s sharing of the glory might indicate a relatively politically uncontrolled form of entertainment, in which even the criticism of power structures was made possible by the more fragmented, less centralised society of early archaic Greece. But this is pure speculation; we can only deal with what we have, and what we have from the ANE offers no compelling parallel for either the form or the function of Homeric battle narrative. Nor is there any reason, apart from current scholarly fashion, for us to expect them to. Perhaps, too, this is all coming perilously close to asking why one group of traditions does not match up to the expectations formed from another. Let us only imagine the displeasure of classicists if we were to inquire of them why the Greeks were so bloodthirstily primitive as to rejoice in blow-by-blow combat narrative, replete with levels of blood and guts at which even a civilised Assyrian – well, that is perhaps a bit of a stretch – might blanch. For all these uncertainties, and however we choose to explain it, there is no getting away from the fact that nothing like the Homeric levels of narrativisation and aestheticisation can be found in ANE representations of battle. Importantly, the formalisation of combat in the Iliad shows that Homer did not himself come up with these conventions: whilst he may or may not have been the first to construct combat narrative on this scale, the individual motifs and themes are typical, traditional and inherited parts of his poetic thesaurus. It is not unreasonable to suggest, therefore, that something like Homer’s battle scenes was typical of Greek heroic narrative long before he took up his phorminx. This is thus a distinctive, and powerful, difference between the narrative traditions of Greece and the ANE.72 71 For other factors contributing to the lack of detailed battle description, cf., e.g., Younger 1990: 169–70 on genre in Egyptian narratives; Cooper 1986: 10 on early Sumerian and Akkadian royal inscriptions; Gilan 2010: 60–1 on Hittite traditions of ‘epic’ and ‘historiography’. On the potential role of orality and transmission, cf. Vogelzang and Vanstiphout 1992. 72 Homer was not autochthonous, of course, and his tradition has a long background, one important part of which was Indo-European; cf. M. L. West 2007, esp. 447–503. The Indian epic Ramayana, especially its final book (the Yuddhakanda), is particularly comparable; cf. R. Goldman et al. 1984: 98–105 and 2009: 22–5, 91–2. That the Greeks were aware of Homeric similarities with Indian traditions is suggested by Dio (Disc. 53.6–8), Aelian (VH 12.48) and Plutarch (Mor. 328D); cf. Derrett 1992. On battle in the Ramayana, cf. Brockington 1998: 162–86, and esp. R. Goldman et al. 2009: 21–2: ‘Valmiki’s descriptions of the realities, the technologies, and the consequences of war are numerous, vivid and interesting. On the one hand he can be brutally direct and graphic, giving almost Homeric accounts of the devastating effects of the violence . . . On the other hand, the poet is fond of bringing out what one may call the aesthetics of violence by glossing the ugliness of the carnage with various poetic figures’; 24–5: ‘the author deploys some of the traditions’ repertory of poetic techniques of “ornamentation” in order to soften

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Though there are many gaps both in my research and in the evidence, we can give a firm answer to Sarah Morris’s challenge at the start of this chapter: there is something distinctively Greek about Homer’s battle scenes, something that cannot be paralleled in the literatures of the ANE. There are a few combat motifs and episodes which scholars have tried to treat genealogically, as the supposed link between the Diapeira and the Book of Judges, but they require careful re-examination, and are overshadowed entirely by the tremendous differences in the usage and fundamental conception of battle narrative. These differences show us, by analogy, the remarkable singularity of this element from the Greek epic tradition in the Mediterranean and ancient Near Eastern setting. As one of the most prominent and characteristic weapons in his poetic thesaurus, Homer’s battle narrative can be defined as Greek in its conception, function and execution.



(footnote 72 continued) and aestheticize the graphic violence . . . Thus the frightful images that inspire the sentiments of fear, horror, or disgust are often skilfully crafted by the poet to rouse other sentiments critical to the aesthetic appreciation of the piece, such as the sentiments of valor and wonder’; 91–2: ‘the foregrounding and aestheticization of violence . . . Valmiki appears to delight in graphic descriptions of massive and sanguinary violence . . . what is noteworthy is the poet’s constant effort to beautify the grisly details of the carnage that takes place on the killing fields . . . Valmiki manages to create a poetry of violence that, even as it details the horrific effects of weaponry on the bodies of men . . . and so gratifies the voyeuristic appetites of its audiences, frequently diverts the reader/auditor’s eye from the sanguinary to the charming through the exploitation of an elaborate and highly conventionalized set of tropes of comparison’ (my italics). This would be a more than adequate description mutatis mutandis of Homeric battle narrative, though the relative brevity of (e.g.) individual combat encounters when compared with those in Irish epic shows that much work remains to be done fully to elucidate the Homeric genealogy; cf. esp. Renehan 1987.

4 NARRATIVE FOCUS AND ELUSIVE THOUGHT IN HOMER Ruth Scodel

This chapter will consider three aspects of Homeric narrative whose interaction produces characteristic and influential effects. The first, and most famous, is reliance on direct speech.1 Homer accomplishes his characterisations largely through speeches (including speeches in which characters attribute motives or traits to each other).2 By itself, Homer’s reliance on direct speech does not mark a uniquely Greek narrative tradition, since Sanskrit epic, for example, also presents many speeches. Furthermore, the evidence suggests that in this respect the Homeric epics were outliers in early Greek epic tradition (Aristotle, Poetics 1460a5–11), and Apollonius uses direct speech far less than the Homeric epics do.3 Reliance on character-speech is one typical quality of Homeric narrative. Others are not quite as familiar. First, ‘interest-focus’ – where the audience directs its attention – changes frequently. ‘Interestfocus’ is Chatman’s term; structuralist narratology has not given careful attention to interest-focus, perhaps because it is so closely connected to characterisation, which classic narratology neglected.4 Also, structuralist narratologists were preoccupied with precision about the nature of focalisation in the strict sense, and with critiques of the concept.5 Shifts of interest-focus do not present such difficult theoretical problems, even though they are inherently harder to define   1 Griffin 1980: 50–80.   2 Edwards 1987; Minchin 2007.   3 Apollonius 29 per cent, in contrast to the Iliad’s 45 per cent and the Odyssey’s 67 per cent. The Aeneid is Homeric in this respect at 47 per cent. See Hunter 1993: 138–51, on the narrator’s mediation in Apollonius.   4 Weststeijn 2007: n. 4 comments that his comment on the lack of attention paid to character in narrative studies is itself a cliché of narrative studies. In Barthes [1970] 1974 (S/Z) characters become collocations of semes; in Greek studies, character receives a similar treatment in Goldhill 1990. Exceptions include Phelan 1989 and a series of papers by Margolin (see Margolin 2007).   5 Greater clarity is the goal of Bal’s critique of Genette (Bal 1985).

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with precision. Yet such shifting obviously makes a great difference in how audiences experience narratives, especially as it gives temporary importance to minor characters.6 Speaking is a significant marker of interest-focus, and as N. J. Lowe has pointed out, nearly one-third of the Iliad’s seventy-seven speaking characters speak only once, and more than half speak only in one book.7 Second, characters often make inferences or guesses about the mental states of others. Classical narratology often treated such mindreading as a form of focalisation, but one of the newer narratologies, cognitive narratology, has made Theory of Mind a distinct and significant topic in narrative studies.8 However, this field is too recent to have generated accessible studies of Theory of Mind that deal with ancient texts, so that it not easy to compare Greek literature with other pre-modern literatures. Third, the omniscient Homeric narrator often provides information about the mental activity of characters – but not always, while the information he provides is very limited.9 So Homeric speakers model how hard it can be to understand other people, and the poems, even though their narrators are omniscient, train their audiences in interpreting characters through their speech. The Homeric narrative thereby provides a basis for drama, in which the audience must make sense of the action without a narrator’s help. In Greek tragedy, interest-focus often shifts radically. The interaction among these characteristics – shift of interest-focus, emphasis on mind-reading, and self-limitation by the omniscient narrator, along with the constant self-revelation through speech of Homeric characters – makes Homeric narrative foundational for the western narrative tradition, for it shows narrative possibilities that were to be developed by tragedy, Virgil and the realist novel. A single chapter on such topics can inevitably be only suggestive. At one level, this discussion continues two important traditions in Homeric studies. One is the debate over Snell’s claim that Homeric characters lack interiority.10 Although scholars now agree that Homeric characters have coherent selves, narratological approaches have not contributed as much as they could to this   6 Woloch 2003 is a fascinating study of how minor characters function in the novel (and, in a brief preface, in the Iliad).   7 Lowe 2000: 115–17.  8 Zunshine 2006.   9 The classical narratological question of whether such narratorial self-limitation is a form of focalisation is not relevant here. Fludernik [1996] 2010b and Jahn 2007 are helpful discussions. 10 Snell [1948] 1953.

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argument.11 Second, Auerbach famously argued in the first chapter of Mimesis that Homeric narrative is all surface, in contrast to the Hebrew Bible, with its intense interiority.12 This debate has also been productive. Homerists, partly in response to Auerbach, have been right to insist on Homer’s use of suspense, foregrounding and other techniques that Auerbach denied. At the same time, they have, like Auerbach, emphasised Homer’s vividness, how the epics make the past almost present before an audience’s eyes.13 Homeric narrative and Biblical narrative differ in significant ways. Biblical narrative obviously does not provide the visual detail of Homer. It often leaves radical gaps, so that the characters’ motivations are profoundly opaque and the reader must work very hard to infer them. The omniscient Homeric narrator does not create such profound gaps, but provides information about a character’s feelings or motives that is not easy to reconcile with the character’s speech and action. Often he creates situations in which the character has many plausible motives for an action. Often a character’s general aim is clear, but details are not. Homeric epic typically provides very full knowledge about what is visible, and more than an observer without access to others’ mind could have – but not very much more. SHIFTS OF FOCUS On a large scale, the Odyssey obviously shifts among Telemachus, Odysseus and Penelope as the interest-focus. This practice is quite different from what cyclic poetry seems often to have done, simply moving serially among different characters from episode to episode (cf. Aristotle’s famous criticism of the Cypria and Little Iliad at Poetics 1459a–b), because the Odyssey’s characters are in rich and complex interaction with each other; their concerns form a single plot. Shifting also happens on the small scale. So for example, at Il. 1.326 we follow the heralds and are given some information about their mental state (τὼ δ’ ἀέκοντε βάτην, ‘they went unwillingly’). The heralds could be unwilling for two (general) reasons: they may be unhappy at being engaged in an action that they think is wrong; or they may be afraid of Achilles. They could very easily feel both these 11 Especially important against Snell have been Williams 1993: 21–38; B. M. W. Knox 1993: 38–47; Gaskin 1990; Pelliccia 1995. 12 Auerbach 1953: 1–20. Especially cited critiques have been Segal 1994: 6–9; Köhnken [1976] 2006, 2009; and De Jong [1994] 2009; more positive reappraisal in Bakker 1997; Clay 2011b: 33–4. Porter 2008 historicises Auerbach’s comparison, showing how it redeems the Jewish Bible; see Haubold, this volume. 13 Ford 1992: 53–5; Bakker 1997, esp. 156–83; and Clay 2011b.

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emotions. When they arrive, the scene, following Homer’s practice, is initially focalised by those arriving (329):14 τὸν δ’ εὗρον παρά τε κλισίῃ καὶ νηῒ μελαίνῃ ἥμενον· οὐδ’ ἄρα τώ γε ἰδὼν γήθησεν Ἀχιλλεύς. τὼ μὲν ταρβήσαντε καὶ αἰδομένω βασιλῆα στήτην, οὐδέ τί μιν προσεφώνεον οὐδ’ ἐρέοντο· αὐτὰρ ὃ ἔγνω ᾗσιν ἐνὶ φρεσὶ φώνησέν τε·

330

They found him sitting beside his shelter and black ship. And Achilles did not rejoice when he saw those two. The two of them, frightened and feeling respect for the chief, stood there, and they did not address him or ask a question. But he understood in his mind and said . . . (Il. 329–33) What follows is a triple shift in focalisation, at least as many narratologists define it. 15 However, ‘focalisation’ is not really the most useful way to describe this sequence. In the middle of 330 we are told about Achilles’ internal response as he sees the heralds, but his seeing in no way filters what the audience learns. Jahn’s critique of Bal applies here:16 according to Bal, any act of perception (brief or extended; real, hypothetical, or fantasized) presented in whatever form (narrated, reported, quoted, or scenically represented) counts as a case of focalization . . . Arguably, unless these acts of perception open distinct windows of focalization, unless A and B turn into genuine reflectors, no internal focalization, let alone an embedded one, takes place. The narrator must be responsible for the litotes of ‘did not rejoice’ and γε (which puts particular emphasis on the preceding dual pronoun). Agamemnon said in the assembly that he would come personally to take Briseis (Il. 1.184–7). He then changed his mind, telling the heralds that he would come himself if Achilles refused to give up Briseis (Il. 14 The visit type-scene has been studied since Arend 1933: 34–53. See De Jong [1987a] 2004: 107–10 for the focalisation through the arriving visitor. 15 The Basle Gesamtkommentar (Latacz 2000) ad loc. calls this a ‘triple, rapid change of perspective’ from 330b Achilles, 331–2 heralds, 333 Achilles. 16 Jahn 1996: 260. See also Fludernik [1996] 2010b: 344–5; p. 404, n. 39 has a bibliography on the debate to that point (1996). These are arguments with Bal 1985: 160–3 and with Genette [1972] 1980. Jahn 2007 is a recent survey, as is Niederhoff 2011.

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1.322–5). They are presumably to convey this threat if necessary, although he does not explicitly say so. When the narrator reports that Achilles is unhappy at seeing the heralds, he is summarising a complex mental process through which Achilles has inferred Agamemnon’s change of plan, but γε marks this process as easy – when Achilles sees these two men, who are heralds, he immediately knows their errand. ‘Saw and did not rejoice’ is a unique adaptation of the common Homeric collocation ‘saw and rejoiced’ (five instances in the Iliad, one in the Odyssey). The tone seems dry, almost ironic, perhaps because Achilles’ anger is entirely predictable. The narrator’s report of Achilles’ mental state may also be the perception of the heralds, since the next two lines presumably narrate their reaction to Achilles’ reaction; though they were uneasy even before they saw Achilles, the inability of professional speakers to speak is extraordinary. These lines describe both the internal mental state of the heralds and their external behaviour. Achilles does not have direct access to their mental states, although he can, of course, register their failure to speak. Line 331 informs the audience that both possible motives for the heralds’ unhappiness with their task are in play: they are afraid, but they also feel respect before Achilles. They presumably respect Achilles’ superior status, and fear his anger. 17 That their respect renders them unable to speak surely shows that they believe that their errand violates social norms. Then, at 333, Achilles draws a correct inference about their feelings from their behaviour and responds courteously, and he becomes both focaliser and interestfocus. Indeed, he simultaneously confirms that the heralds have been an interest-focus and appropriates the attention that they have received – the audience can sympathise more readily with Achilles because he reacts generously to the heralds’ discomfort. To describe this sequence in terms of focalisation does not capture how it works. The narrator provides information about the characters’ perceptions and their internal responses to them, but the characters are not reflectors. The audience sees the heralds seeing Achilles and Achilles seeing the heralds. The narrator, typically, provides minimal information about the characters’ mental states. Line 333 requires that the audience infer a complex mental process in Achilles, as he not only comprehends how they feel, but evaluates how to respond and controls his feelings (at Il. 11.653–4, Patroclus suggests that such behaviour is not characteristic of Achilles). 17 On this distinction, see Cairns 1993: 88–9; Zaborowski 2002: 168. Kirk ad loc. points out that their fear is described in an aorist participle, their respect in the present (fear belongs to this moment; respect is continuing).

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This episode points to another characteristic of Homeric narrative. The heralds are not important characters. Eurybates does not function as an interest-focus again, though he goes on the embassy. Talthybius obeys Agamemnon’s orders at 3.118 and 4.193. Then, at 7.274–6, Talthybius and Idaeus intervene in the combat between Hector and Ajax. This is a significant action, but the narrator does not say how they reached an understanding or what their motives are; and neither focalises. Only Idaeus speaks. The heralds here are not apparently of interest for themselves. Talthybius appears thereafter only to serve Agamemnon, but Idaeus takes a message from Troy to the Achaeans later in Book 7. He has an arrival scene, making him a focaliser of the Achaean assembly, and he does not simply deliver his message, but inserts his own wish that Paris had died before he brought Menelaus’ property to Troy and the information that the Trojans urge Helen’s return (7.390–4). He also attributes Priam’s request for a truce to the Trojans generally (394). Later, when he assists Priam on his journey to the Achaean camp, he first sees Hermes, and suggests to Priam that they either both mount the chariot and flee (Idaeus is driving the mule-wagon) or supplicate the stranger (24.352–7). Priam, however, is too paralysed by panic to act. Idaeus, in other words, has his own perspective. Briseis is another such minor character. At 1.348, the narrator tells us that Briseis went with the heralds ἀέκουσ’ (like the heralds, she is ‘unwilling’). Nothing further points to her inner state until she laments Patroclus at 19.282–301, when she receives interestfocus. There is no way to predict which minor characters will receive interest-focus, so that every character has to be understood as potentially a focus.18 The Homeric narrator’s habit of shifting interest-focus is not unique to Greek. It appears in the Hebrew Bible: He [Isaac] went out to the field one evening to meditate, and as he looked up, he saw camels approaching. Rebekah also looked up and saw Isaac. She got down from her camel and asked the servant, ‘Who is that man in the field coming to meet us?’ ‘He is my master,’ the servant answered. So she took her veil and covered herself. Then the servant told Isaac all he had done. Isaac brought her into the tent of his mother Sarah, and he married Rebekah. So she became his wife, and he loved her; and Isaac was comforted after his mother’s death. (Gen. 24: 63–7)

18 There are also the anonymous figures who are often very briefly focalisers and/or centres of interest in similes, as Purves notes in this volume (p. 177).

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narrative focus and elusive thought in homer 61 In this passage, classical focalisation (‘who sees’) is also interest-focus. Isaac has taken no part in the preparation for his marriage. Although he has obviously been thematically central, the narrative has taken very little interest in him.19 So it is significant that the narrator first shows Isaac as he sees the caravan approach, then turns to Rebekah as she sees Isaac, and then turns back to Isaac. It is harder to evaluate shifting between major and minor characters, since Biblical narrative is highly episodic compared to Greek epic, and many characters are centres of interest-focus but then vanish (in this story, for example, Abraham’s servant).20 This shifting, then, is not uniquely Greek, but it is characteristic and important for the later history of Greek literature. First, it prompts later authors to create cameos. The tragedians not infrequently create vivid but very minor characters. While these serve particular functions, they are more alive than these functions require: Cilissa, the Nurse in Libation Bearers, for example, has a practical plot function (she tells Aegisthus that he does not need a bodyguard) and a thematic function (undercutting Clytemnestra’s maternal role), but her complaints about the difficulties of baby care present a sort of mimetic excess – she has been individualised because the poet imagined how a person of a particular kind would react in such a situation, and the audience is, however briefly, interested in her for herself. The Guard in Sophocles’ Antigone is another famous example. His individuality serves various dramatic and thematic functions: his evasive chattiness annoys Creon in a way that tells the audience more about what kind of person Creon is; his concern for self-preservation serves as a foil for Antigone’s lack of concern for her own life, so that, like the heralds, his individuality is secondary to his function. Yet he, like Cilissa, briefly matters for himself.21 On the larger scale, the Homeric practice of giving focal moments to many characters invites later authors to create new plots by changing the focus of familiar stories, moving the margin to the centre. Sophocles and Euripides make Electra the centre of the story of Orestes’ revenge. When classical Greek poets develop heroic legend, however, there is a significant distinction between secondary characters, who can become protagonists (Hecuba or Phoenix), and minor characters, whose lower social class limits how far they can be developed. Outside these narratives of the past, interest-focus is not so socially limited (the ‘I’ of Archilochus, for example), and in Hellenistic narrative even stories 19 On the passivity of Isaac, see Alter 1981: 64; Teugels 1994. 20 Cf. also the shifting gaze in Gilgamesh discussed by Haubold in this volume (pp. 19–23). 21 I think, however, that Yoon 2012 goes too far in subordinating anonymous ­characters to the main tragic figures (on the Watchman, 55–9).

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set in the heroic past can maintain sustained interest-focus on a nonheroic character (such as Callimachus’ Hecale). MIND-READING Homeric characters themselves frequently try to understand each other’s thoughts. For example, they interpret non-verbal behaviour with more or less success. Achilles recognises that the heralds are embarrassed by their errand; he can probably understand their hesitation because it fits what he would want them to feel. It seems clear that Achilles actually knows why Patroclus is crying at the opening of Iliad 16 (5–19), even though he pretends that he does not: τὸν δὲ ἰδὼν ᾤκτιρε ποδάρκης δῖος Ἀχιλλεύς, 5 καί μιν φωνήσας ἔπεα πτερόεντα προσηύδα· ‘τίπτε δεδάκρυσαι Πατρόκλεες, ἠΰτε κούρη νηπίη, ἥ θ’ ἅμα μητρὶ θέουσ’ ἀνελέσθαι ἀνώγει εἱανοῦ ἁπτομένη, καί τ’ ἐσσυμένην κατερύκει, δακρυόεσσα δέ μιν ποτιδέρκεται, ὄφρ’ ἀνέληται· 10 τῇ ἴκελος Πάτροκλε τέρεν κατὰ δάκρυον εἴβεις. ἠέ τι Μυρμιδόνεσσι πιφαύσκεαι, ἢ ἐμοὶ αὐτῷ, ἦέ τιν’ ἀγγελίην Φθίης ἐξέκλυες οἶος; ζώειν μὰν ἔτι φασὶ Μενοίτιον Ἄκτορος υἱόν, ζώει δ’ Αἰακίδης Πηλεὺς μετὰ Μυρμιδόνεσσι; 15 τῶν κε μάλ’ ἀμφοτέρων ἀκαχοίμεθα τεθνηώτων. ἦε σύ γ’ Ἀργείων ὀλοφύρεαι, ὡς ὀλέκονται νηυσὶν ἔπι γλαφυρῇσιν ὑπερβασίης ἕνεκα σφῆς; ἐξαύδα, μὴ κεῦθε νόῳ, ἵνα εἴδομεν ἄμφω. Seeing him, godlike sure-footed Achilles felt pity, and addressing him he spoke winged words: ‘Why are you crying, Patroclus, like a girl, a little girl, who runs by her mother and urges her to pick her up, holding her robe, and holds her back when she is hurrying, and looks at her weeping, until she picks her up. Like her, Patroclus, you are shedding a soft tear. Do you have something to tell the Myrmidons, or myself, or have you alone heard some news from Phthia? They say Menoetius, Actor’s son, is alive, and Peleus, son of Aeacus. lives among the Myrmidons. We would be grieved at the deaths of them both. Or are you lamenting for the Argives, who are dying over their hollow ships because of their own transgression? Speak out, do not hide it in your mind, so that we can both know.’

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Achilles’ list of other, implicitly better reasons for Patroclus to be distressed must be disingenuous. It is most unlikely that Patroclus would have news from Phthia before Achilles, and by sending Patroclus to Nestor he has almost guaranteed that Patroclus would try to persuade him to return to battle.22 The comparison to a little girl points the same way, since the simile implies that Patroclus wants something from Achilles, as indeed he does (and it further implies that Achilles will eventually grant it). He can read Patroclus’ thoughts effectively not only because he knows Patroclus well, but also because he and Patroclus are both deeply concerned about the situation of the Achaeans, as he has revealed by sending Patroclus to Nestor; he would not expect Patroclus to be upset about anything else. Indeed, the other character who uses the language of line 19 is Thetis, who tells Achilles at 1.363 not to hide the cause of his grief, although he immediately responds that she knows already. She varies the formula slightly at 18.74–5, ἐξαύδα, μὴ κεῦθε· τὰ μὲν δή τοι τετέλεσται / ἐκ Διός (‘Speak out, do not hide it. The things from Zeus have been accomplished that you asked for’), when she again asks Achilles the cause of his grief.23 So although the passage is mysterious, because Achilles’ speech does not appear to express the pity that the narrator attributes to him (on this more below), it shows that Homeric characters make successful inferences about each other’s mental states. Such pseudo-questions are common. When Hera and Athena do not rise when Zeus enter his halls, he asks them why they are behaving this way: αἳ δ’ οἶαι Διὸς ἀμφὶς Ἀθηναίη τε καὶ Ἥρη ἥσθην, οὐδέ τί μιν προσεφώνεον οὐδ’ ἐρέοντο· 445 αὐτὰρ ὃ ἔγνω ᾗσιν ἐνὶ φρεσὶ φώνησέν τε· ‘τίφθ’ οὕτω τετίησθον, Ἀθηναίη τε καὶ Ἥρη; οὐ μέν θην κάμετόν γε μάχῃ ἔνι κυδιανείρῃ ὀλλῦσαι Τρῶας, τοῖσιν κότον αἰνὸν ἔθεσθε.’ 22 Rothe 1910: 279 remarks that Homeric characters often use a ‘harmless Tone’ in addressing others who are obviously agitated. It is true that speakers often assume such emotional disengagement, but the narrator’s comment on Achilles’ pity makes this a complex instance. De Jong [1987a] 2004: 170 thinks Achilles’ pity means that he cannot be mocking Patroclus; Taplin 1992: 177 comments that he must know why Patroclus is distressed; Zanker 1994: 14–15 calls it ‘chaffing sarcasm’; Janko 1992 on 16.7–19 calls it ‘a friendly rebuke’; Edwards 1991: 257 considers the simile mocking. 23 Thetis, despite her divine knowledge and her intense concern for her son, is ignorant of what has happened. See Reinhardt 1961: 26–7, who points out that Achilles has never shown an awareness that his prayer to his mother is being fulfilled.

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Only Athena and Hera sat in respect to Zeus, and they did not address him or ask a question. But he understood in his mind and said, ‘Why are you upset like this, Athena and Hera? You have surely not got worn out in battle where men win glory, killing Trojans, against whom you have made your resentment terrible.’ (Il. 8.444–9) Lines 445–6 repeat 1.332–3 (substituting ‘sat’ for ‘stood’), but the dynamic of emotion and power is very different. In other cases, a speaker may ask and then formulate a hypothesis, but the question seems to be genuine (for example, Il. 15.90–1), where Themis asks Hera why she is distressed, and then answers her own question, as the narrator represents Themis’ Theory of Mind in action. Homeric characters also make assumptions about what others do or do not know. When Nestor asks Patroclus why Achilles laments the wounded Achaeans, and claims that Achilles does not comprehend the grief of the army (11.657–8), it is impossible to say whether Nestor is right that Achilles is ignorant – in any case, what he means is probably not that Achilles does not know, but that his emotional response is inadequate. The Odyssey’s suitors are completely wrong when they hear Penelope cry out: ὧδε δέ τις εἴπεσκε νέων ὑπερηνορεόντων· ‘ἦ μάλα δὴ γάμον ἄμμι πολυμνήστη βασίλεια24 470 ἀρτύει, οὐδέ τι οἶδεν, ὅ οἱ φόνος υἷϊ τέτυκται.’ One of the arrogant young men would speak as follows: ‘No doubt, the much-courted lady is preparing a marriage for us, and she doesn’t know that her son’s murder has been crafted.’ (Od. 4.769–71) Actually, she knows about their plot – the herald Medon has just informed her – and her cry concludes a prayer she has made to Athena to stop their plans. The suitors are, not surprisingly, consistently wrong in their inferences about other people. Both Homeric epics, then, frequently draw attention to how often human interaction involves guessing the mental states of others.

24 The particle ἦ indicates a speaker’s confidence in his judgement and is common in passages depicting Theory of Mind (Scodel 2012).

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Often, the narrator does not provide as much information about the mental states of characters as we might want, and the characters’ attempts at understanding one another serve as reminders for the external audience of how much or little they know. Because Homeric narrative is so full, and the characters talk so much about their mental states, it is easy to assume that we know more than we do. In Iliad 9, ambassadors pray as they walk to Achilles’ camp that they will easily persuade Achilles (Il. 9.184; I am bracketing the problem of the duals here). Persuasion is an attempt to change another person’s mental state, so the audience is primed to believe that the ambassadors will be trying to understand what Achilles is thinking and feeling and themselves to consider what Achilles may be thinking and feeling. We follow the ambassadors as they arrive in a typical ‘visit’ passage: τὸν δ’ εὗρον φρένα τερπόμενον φόρμιγγι λιγείῃ καλῇ δαιδαλέῃ, ἐπὶ δ’ ἀργύρεον ζυγὸν ἦεν, τὴν ἄρετ’ ἐξ ἐνάρων πόλιν Ἠετίωνος ὀλέσσας· τῇ ὅ γε θυμὸν ἔτερπεν, ἄειδε δ’ ἄρα κλέα ἀνδρῶν. Πάτροκλος δέ οἱ οἶος ἐναντίος ἧστο σιωπῇ, 190 δέγμενος Αἰακίδην ὁπότε λήξειεν ἀείδων. They found him delighting his heart with a high-pitched lyre, a beautiful and elaborate one, with a silver cross-piece, that he got from the booty when he destroyed Eëtion’s city. With that he was delighting his heart, and he was singing the famous deeds of men. Only Patroclus was sitting across from him, in silence, waiting for the son of Aeacus, whenever he would stop singing. (Il. 9.186–91) Even if the visitors know where Achilles obtained his lyre, they are unlikely to be thinking about this at this moment. The narrator provides this information. Who tells us that Achilles is ‘delighting his heart’? Is it their inference that he enjoys what he is doing? Again, they presumably see where Patroclus is sitting and notice that he is the only member of Achilles’ audience and that he is silent. Do the visitors realise that Patroclus is waiting for Achilles to stop, or is this narratorial information? They could presumably infer this either from their knowledge of norms of behaviour or because they understand the relationship between Achilles and Patroclus. Even though there is no shifting, this passage, like Il. 1.329–33, problematises classical focalisation, because it is impossible entirely to distinguish what the characters see and infer from what the narrator infallibly knows. The

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ambassadors are the interest-focus here; whoever perceives and understands particular details, the ambassadors are the emotional centre. Then, however, Achilles responds to the arrival and we are told that he is surprised (193–5): ταφὼν δ’ ἀνόρουσεν Ἀχιλλεὺς αὐτῇ σὺν φόρμιγγι λιπὼν ἕδος ἔνθα θάασσεν. ὣς δ’ αὔτως Πάτροκλος, ἐπεὶ ἴδε φῶτας, ἀνέστη. 195 In surprise, Achilles jumped up, still holding the lyre, leaving the seat where he had been sitting. And likewise Patroclus, when he saw the men, stood up. Perhaps the narrator provides the detail that Achilles still holds the lyre in order to indicate that Achilles’ surprise is visible to the ambassadors. Achilles greets the visitors, and the narrator reports from an equal distance on both Achilles and his guests as he seats them. The visitors, however are still the interest-focus, as Achilles and Patroclus perform an elaborately narrated series of hospitable actions. Since we have been led to care about his state of mind at this point primarily as it affects the Achaeans, although we do not watch these actions through the ambassadors, we still watch with them, hoping that the warm reception Achilles gives them indicates that he will also be open to their mission. Then we receive another small bit of information about a mental state, when Ajax nods to Phoenix, and Odysseus notices the gesture (1.224: νεῦσ’ Αἴας Φοίνικι· νόησε δὲ δῖος Ὀδυσσεύς), and begins speaking. We have to infer that Ajax thinks that Phoenix should speak, but that Odysseus decides to open the conversation instead. Although we know very well what the ambassadors want, we are painfully under-informed about what precisely anybody is thinking; we do not know why Odysseus chooses to speak. He has probably been fooled by Achilles’ gracious hospitality into misjudging his receptiveness to Agamemnon’s offer. When Achilles delivers his very long and intense reply, we infer that something in Odysseus’ approach has offended him, but we have no more knowledge of Achilles’ actual thoughts than his visitors do. Near the end of the episode, Achilles nods to Patroclus: Ἦ, καὶ Πατρόκλῳ ὅ γ’ ἐπ’ ὀφρύσι νεῦσε σιωπῇ Φοίνικι στορέσαι πυκινὸν λέχος, ὄφρα τάχιστα ἐκ κλισίης νόστοιο μεδοίατο· τοῖσι δ’ ἄρ’ Αἴας ἀντίθεος Τελαμωνιάδης μετὰ μῦθον ἔειπε·

620

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narrative focus and elusive thought in homer 67 He spoke, and he silently nodded under his brows to Patroclus to spread a thick bed for Phoenix, so that they would be thinking about returning from his hut immediately. Ajax then, the godlike son of Telamon, spoke among them . . . (Il. 9.620–3)

The dative plural τοῖσι tells the external audience that, although Ajax’ speech is addressed to Odysseus only, it has a wider audience; δ’ ἄρ’ suggests that it is part of the ongoing sequence of moves, and it is called a μῦθος, a speech claiming authority.25 However, since Phoenix is apparently going to remain with Achilles, when Ajax speaks to Odysseus, the two of them are the only active members of the embassy remaining, and Ajax speaks as if the ambassadors were the only ratified participants: διογενὲς Λαερτιάδη, πολυμήχαν’ Ὀδυσσεῦ ἴομεν· οὐ γάρ μοι δοκέει μύθοιο τελευτὴ τῇδέ γ’ ὁδῷ κρανέεσθαι· ἀπαγγεῖλαι δὲ τάχιστα χρὴ μῦθον Δαναοῖσι καὶ οὐκ ἀγαθόν περ ἐόντα οἵ που νῦν ἕαται ποτιδέγμενοι. αὐτὰρ Ἀχιλλεὺς ἄγριον ἐν στήθεσσι θέτο μεγαλήτορα θυμὸν σχέτλιος, οὐδὲ μετατρέπεται φιλότητος ἑταίρων τῆς ᾗ μιν παρὰ νηυσὶν ἐτίομεν ἔξοχον ἄλλων νηλής· καὶ μέν τίς τε κασιγνήτοιο φονῆος ποινὴν ἢ οὗ παιδὸς ἐδέξατο τεθνηῶτος· καί ῥ’ ὃ μὲν ἐν δήμῳ μένει αὐτοῦ πόλλ’ ἀποτίσας, τοῦ δέ τ’ ἐρητύεται κραδίη καὶ θυμὸς ἀγήνωρ ποινὴν δεξαμένῳ· σοὶ δ’ ἄληκτόν τε κακόν τε θυμὸν ἐνὶ στήθεσσι θεοὶ θέσαν εἵνεκα κούρης οἴης·

625

630

635

Zeus-descended son of Laertes, much-contriving Odysseus, let’s go. For I do not think that the end of our speech will be accomplished, at least not on this journey. We should report his speech to the Danaans immediately, though it is not good – they are surely now sitting and waiting for it. But Achilles has made the great-hearted spirit in his chest wild, and he does not care about the friendly feeling of his companions – the friendliness through which we honoured him beyond others by the ships. Pitiless! A person accepts wergild from the killer of his brother, or his own child who has died. So one man stays in his community after paying great compensation, and the other’s heart and ­over-manly 25 Martin 1989.

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spirit are restrained, since he has accepted compensation. But the gods have made the spirit in your breast unceasing and bad because of one girl. (Il. 9.624–38) This is, pragmatically, an exceptionally interesting speech. Ajax begins with a polite directive to Odysseus, followed by an explanation of the directive. He then offers a comment on Achilles, speaking about him in the third person for 8.5 lines. Only at 636 does he use the secondperson pronoun and speak to Achilles directly. Hainsworth on 624–36 says: ‘Aias begins by ostensibly addressing Odysseus, but more and more as he proceeds his remarks are made for Akhilleus’ ears, until he finally slips into the 2nd person in 636.’ This comment is not entirely clear. If Ajax is from the start only ‘ostensibly’ addressing Odysseus, he is really speaking to Achilles from the start, and his remarks are not directed at Achilles any more than they initially were. Hainsworth also follows Higbie in inferring from the periodic enjambement of the passage that Ajax is angry.26 These lines could represent several slightly different strategies and emotional states in Ajax. He evidently recognises Achilles’ gesture to Patroclus as an indirect signal to the guests (although Achilles presumably intends the signal for the guests to be the making of the bed, not his nod). He could, indeed, intend his words for Achilles from the beginning, perhaps reacting to Achilles’ indirection with his own (and does this reaction to a nod in some way echo the earlier ‘intercepted’ nod of Ajax to Phoenix?). Achilles is then an ‘indirect target’.27 If Achilles is the intended audience, there is still a range of ways we could interpret the speech. Is it planned from the beginning – that is, is the address to Odysseus a deliberate manoeuvre? Is Ajax consciously displaying his own unwillingness to let the Achaeans endure suspense as an implicit rebuke to Achilles? Is he gradually allowing his anger to leak as a rhetorical strategy? Or does he address Odysseus simply because this is the most effective way he can express his frustration with Achilles? However, he may actually be addressing Odysseus when he starts. As he expresses his concern for the Achaeans who are waiting for the return of the embassy, his frustration mounts and he begins to complain about Achilles, until finally he turns to Achilles directly. There are parallels on both sides, spontaneity and rhetorical strategy, of an angry speaker’s switch of addressee. In Od. 17.238–6, 26 Higbie 1990: 118–20; Hainsworth 1993: 142 on 625–42 and 624–36. 27 Levinson 1988: 161–227, esp. 21–2. Indirectly targeted participants often respond as if they had been addressed, and sometimes participants show that they are themselves uncertain whether a participant has been indirectly targeted or not.

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narrative focus and elusive thought in homer 69 Eumaeus prays to the Nymphs. Melanthius, addressing Eumaeus, has spoken abusively about the beggar at length, has directly insulted Eumaeus himself, and has kicked the beggar. The narrator informs the external audience in advance that Eumaeus will both abuse Melanthius and pray:            τὸν δὲ συβώτης νείκεσ’ ἐσάντα ἰδών, μέγα δ’ εὔξατο χεῖρας ἀνασχών· ‘Νύμφαι κρηναῖαι, κοῦραι Διός, εἴ ποτ’ Ὀδυσσεὺς 240 ὔμμ’ ἐπὶ μηρί’ ἔκηε, καλύψας πίονι δημῷ, ἀρνῶν ἠδ’ ἐρίφων, τόδε μοι κρηήνατ’ ἐέλδωρ, ὡς ἔλθοι μὲν κεῖνος ἀνήρ, ἀγάγοι δέ ἑ δαίμων. τῶ κέ τοι ἀγλαΐας γε διασκεδάσειεν ἁπάσας, τὰς νῦν ὑβρίζων φορέεις, ἀλαλήμενος αἰεὶ 245 ἄστυ κάτ’· αὐτὰρ μῆλα κακοὶ φθείρουσι νομῆες The swineherd rebuked him looking straight at him, and he prayed loudly, holding up his hands: ‘Nymphs of the fountain, daughters of Zeus, if ever Odysseus burned thigh-pieces to you, hiding them in rich fat, of lambs or goats, fulfil this request for me – that that man come, and the divinity bring him. Then he would scatter away all your adornments, which now you carry around while you behave abusively, always going around in the town. But bad herdsmen ruin flocks. Although the narrator does not actually tell us that Eumaeus frames his prayer so that he can easily make the transition to addressing and abusing Melanthius, because we know from the beginning that he will do both, we probably assume that he intends both from the start. On the other hand, at Il. 17.18–32 the narrator informs the audience of Menelaus’ general state of mind and specifies that he is speaking to Euphorbus: Τὸν δὲ μέγ’ ὀχθήσας προσέφη ξανθὸς Μενέλαος· ‘Ζεῦ πάτερ, οὐ μὲν καλὸν ὑπέρβιον εὐχετάασθαι. . . . ὥς θην καὶ σὸν ἐγὼ λύσω μένος εἴ κέ μευ ἄντα στήῃς· ἀλλά σ’ ἔγωγ’ ἀναχωρήσαντα κελεύω ἐς πληθὺν ἰέναι, μηδ’ ἀντίος ἵστασ’ ἐμεῖο πρίν τι κακὸν παθέειν· ῥεχθὲν δέ τε νήπιος ἔγνω.

30

Greatly angered, blond Menelaus addressed him: ‘Father Zeus, it is not a fine thing to boast arrogantly. . . . So I will surely undo

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your life-energy if you stand against me. But I urge you to retreat and go back into the mass, and don’t stand opposite me, before you suffer something bad. A fool learns by suffering.’ After his opening address to Zeus, Menelaus elaborately complains of the excessive arrogance of the sons of Panthous, then boasts of his killing of Hyperenor before threatening Euphorbus himself. In all the other examples of Ζεῦ πάτερ in the two epics (thirty-two instances at line-initial), the speaker is genuinely praying or complaining to Zeus. Indeed, at 13.620 Menelaus, having killed Peisandrus, delivers a boast addressed to the Trojans generally (Τρῶες ὑπερφίαλοι, 621). At 624–5 he accuses them of having no fear of Zeus, and at 631 he addresses Zeus directly, complaining that he favours the hybristic Trojans (Il. 13.631–5). The change of addressee here is clearly spontaneous; Menelaus’ thoughts turn from the Trojans, to their disrespect for Zeus, to Zeus’ apparent toleration of this disrespect. So the progression of Menelaus’ speech to Euphorbus, although it is from the start an indirect speech-act aimed at Euphorbus, could also be spontaneous. He begins by addressing Zeus, probably intending to demonstrate that Euphorbus has shown the kind of arrogance that Menelaus believes that Zeus deplores and so indirectly to threaten Euphorbus, but his complaint slips into a vaunt and a direct threat. Parallels and formal considerations, then, cannot tell us exactly what Ajax intends. Even if the narrator had told us more about the emotional state of Ajax, we still would not know exactly how his mind was working. Sometimes the narrator does provide information about a character’s mental state, but it does not instantly fit what the character says. At the beginning of Iliad 16, discussed above, we are told that Achilles pities Patroclus, but his speech is not an obvious expression of pity. The word is ᾤκτιρε, from the less common of the two word-families for ‘pity’ (oiktos rather than eleos, which seems in Homer to be more directly associated with consequent action).28 Still, it is striking that the speech gives no sign of sympathy with Patroclus at all. When Achilles reaches the real reason for Patroclus’ tears, he insists that the Achaeans’ sufferings are their own fault. Where is the expression of pity here? Patroclus does not bother to answer the false proposals Achilles has made about the cause, and begins his reply by saying μὴ νεμέσα (‘Do not be indignant’); he has apparently not perceived Achilles’ pity, or does not trust it. Earlier, when Patroclus tells Nestor that Achilles has sent him to ask about Machaon, Nestor immediately asks ‘Why does Achilles grieve like this for the sons of the 28 Sternberg 2005: 22–4 argues that the words are impossible to distinguish.

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Achaeans, however many have been wounded?’ (Il. 11.656–7). Only a few lines later, he complains that Achilles does not ‘care about or pity’ the Danaans (using ἐλεαίρει, from the eleos-family, Il. 11.665). In Nestor’s view, since Achilles could so easily, by fighting, end the Achaeans’ distress, it is perverse that his message indicates that he feels pity. Nestor and narrator both indicate a disjuncture between Achilles’ feelings and his behaviour. We should probably infer that if Achilles did not pity Patroclus, he would not invite him to speak about the Achaeans at all. By encouraging him to speak, he indicates that he will compromise, and this indication is confirmed by his response to Patroclus’ speech. His friend accuses him of pitilessness and inhumanity. Although the narrator says that he is very upset (16.48), his reaction is controlled – his mild indignation is overtly directed at the suggestion that he is staying away from battle because of a prophecy (16.49). He is distressed, probably, not because Patroclus wants him to fight, but because he feels that Patroclus does not share his view of how terribly Agamemnon offended. Nonetheless, he quickly offers to dismiss the past. He is, indeed, ready to concede, but the concession is preceded by mockery, because his pity does not supersede his need to justify his behaviour up to this point. All this is, however, entirely inference. What we are given is minimal information about Achilles’ feelings, and speeches that do not seem exactly to fit those feelings. If we think that we fully understand Achilles, we are deceiving ourselves. Another complex example comes in Odyssey 8. Alcinous sees that Odysseus is weeping as Demodocus sings about the wooden horse (Od. 8.533–4), and Alcinous knows that the stranger requested this very song, even though the stranger also wept at Demodocus’ earlier song about Troy. He also knows that Odysseus fought at Troy, and that he was probably an important hero, both because he has claimed to have been second only to Philoctetes as an archer (Od. 8.219–20), and because he has shown himself to be a person of high status since he arrived. So Alcinous first encourages the stranger to say his name, his parents and his country, pointing out that the Phaeacians will need to know where to convey him. This direct request for the guest’s name is itself unusual,29 but Alcinous also makes clear that he has noticed that the stranger has craftily avoided identifying himself: τῶ νῦν μηδὲ σὺ κεῦθε νοήμασι κερδαλέοισιν, ὅττι κέ σ’ εἴρωμαι· φάσθαι δέ σε κάλλιόν ἐστιν. 29 Webber 1989: 10–13.

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Therefore, do not hide with crafty purposes what I ask you. It is finer for you to speak. Alcinous’ question, with its adjective κερδαλέοισιν, may express some frustration – the Phaeacians have not behaved in a way that would justify a guest’s manipulativeness, and he is violating social norms.30 The external audience does not know any more than Alcinous does exactly why Odysseus has avoided revealing his identity for so long; this is a familiar interpretative problem in the poem. When Arete first asks him his home and parentage, she infamously also asks where he got the clothes he is wearing: ‘Who of men are you, and are where are you from? Who gave you these clothes? Don’t you claim to have come here by wandering over the sea?’ (Od. 7.238–9). Odysseus explains his wandering over the sea and the clothes, but not his origins, which he does not reveal until he answers Alcinous’ question. The hearer may be too distracted by the immediate problems Odysseus confronts in this scene to think about his evasion of the question, but the following episodes make it highly salient, especially when Demodocus sings about Odysseus’ quarrel with Achilles, not knowing that Odysseus is present (Od. 8.73–82), and when Euryalus insults him, and his angry response almost identifies him, since he boasts that he was the secondbest archer at Troy, after Philoctetes (Od. 8.219–22). There may even be a metanarratological joke here, since Odysseus’ skill with the bow is essential to this narrative, but he does not use the bow in the Iliad, and apparently did not use it in Trojan War stories generally.31 It is thus likely that even though he was among the best archers, neither the Phaeacians nor the external audience have heard stories that would make ‘second-best archer at Troy’ a reliable identifier. Alcinous has referred in passing to the stranger’s ‘children’ – the audience, of course, knows that Odysseus has only a single son. At any rate, Odysseus is obviously delaying the revelation of his identity past the point at which ordinary caution might be in order, and while the external audience can infer, as Alcinous does, that he does this because he thinks it is in his self-interest, and also, knowing who he is, that manipulative behaviour is characteristic of him, the external audience does not know exactly why he waits so long to identify himself, and never indeed finds out. We may assume, since he is usually so rational, that he has a good reason, and I have suggested elsewhere that he has in the past discovered that some of 30 De Jong 2001: 219 notes this as an example of the ‘delayed reaction presentation’ technique. 31 Cf. Danek 1998: 151–3.

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those he meets have heard prophecies about him by name (Circe and Polyphemus), and so wants to be exceptionally careful.32 But this can be only an inference. Alcinous, having asked the stranger’s identity, then asks why the stranger weeps at the song; he infers that Odysseus must have lost a close relative or good friend in the war (Od. 8.577–86). Alcinous’ ignorance serves as foil for the audience’s knowledge but also for their ignorance. The external audience knows the stranger’s name, parents and home, but not exactly why he is weeping. He has lost not one but many companions; is he weeping for all of them, or does he care especially about some of them? Is he weeping at the contrast between his triumph at Troy and the misery he has endured since? Is he even, as the simile of the captive woman at Od. 8.523–31 suggests, weeping at the misery caused to so many, including the Trojans, by the war? Did Odysseus ask for this song because he knew it would make him cry, and he, guessing that his tears would push Alcinous to demand his name, wanted this prompt for the beginning of his story? Or did he want this story to introduce his own, but not realise how it would affect him?33 Odysseus could have many motives for requesting the song and for weeping at it, motives not incompatible with each other but nonetheless distinct. Alcinous’ only partially successful mind-reading first directs the hearer to what the external audience knows and the internal audience does not, but it can also point to what the external audience does not know – namely, exactly what Odysseus is thinking and feeling, and a consideration of the characters’ work at understanding each other brings us back to what even the external audience, with all its advantages – including, probably, other versions of the same basic story – does not know. The narrator’s interest in the characters’ Theory of Mind is thus important for both Homeric psychology in general and characterisation in particular – it is a technique for showing how perceptive individuals are and how fully they are ‘in tune’ with each other. But it is also important for expositional technique. The narrator frequently points to the difficulty people have in understanding others when they are not already closely aligned. Yet the audience may feel perplexed even when it has more information than the characters and its sympathies may be fully engaged, as with Odysseus among the Phaeacians, because the narrator severely limits the information he provides about 32 Scodel 1999. 33 The same debates recur over the foot-washing later. See E. Schwartz 1924; 196 and the discussion in Fenik 1974: 43–4.

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the characters’ mental states, even as he invites the audience to care about them. I doubt that it would be possible to see any particular system in the Homeric management of gaps, but it is important to be aware that the level of gapping is variable, though in neither epic is it radical. Both the external narrator and other characters stress that Penelope is loyal to Odysseus; we do not know exactly what she is thinking – hence the ‘Penelope question’ – but we know the general state of her mind.34 I would suggest that when we look at Homeric narrative in this way, it is a little more like the characteristic narrative of the Hebrew Bible than it seems superficially, but it is still different. Biblical narrators are often extremely sparse in providing information about mental states. In the sacrifice of Isaac, the narrator gives only the barest clues about the feelings or thoughts of the participants, even as he offers considerable details about externals (the servants, the donkeys, the wood). Homeric characters, in contrast, talk and talk, and we hear so much about them and their motives that it is only when we reflect that we realise that we still need inference and imagination. Sometimes we are left completely uninformed about a character’s motives for a significant action – for example, why Odysseus reports to the Achaean council only Achilles’ initial response to the embassy and not his later modifications (Il. 9.674–92) – but Odysseus’ motives would not profoundly change the narrative if we knew them. This, again, is one of the techniques that made it possible to create drama out of narrative forms. Tragedy takes the further step of requiring the external audience to use its Theory of Mind all the way through, to make sense of what characters say and do without side-knowledge, except what prior knowledge of a myth or a divine prologue may offer.35

34 Survey in Doherty 1995: 31–54; see also Heitman 2005. 35 Budelmann and Easterling 2010.

5 STRUCTURE AS INTERPRETATION IN THE HOMERIC ODYSSEY Erwin Cook

‘Defining Greek narrative’ poses an interesting challenge for Homerists, like myself, committed to the proposition that the epics reflect the compositional practices of oral poetry the world over.1 In terms of formal approaches, many scholars, including contributors to this volume, have found it productive to apply narratology to elucidate Homer, a methodology with greater universalising assumptions than oral theory. Nevertheless, an aspect of the epics that I believe is distinctive, and in certain respects unique, is the ways in which they manipulate traditional conventions so as to guide reception. Although Scodel rightly cautions against assuming homogeneous audiences of epic connoisseurs, the practice does, I think, imply audience members able to recognise the patterns and respond to the manipulation.2 An example is the ascending scale of affection Phoenix employs as a persuasive device in Il. 9.574–94: he positions the category of ‘friends’ (585: ἑταῖροι) higher up the scale than is typical, because it is largely on the basis of friendship that he hopes to convince Achilles to return to battle.3

I am grateful to Douglas Cairns and Ruth Scodel for inviting me to the conference, and for their hospitality during my stay in Edinburgh. I would also like to thank them and the following colleagues for reading and commenting on various drafts of the chapter: Jonathan Burgess, Tom Jenkins, Lenny Muellner, Corinne Pache and Greg Thalmann. Thanks are also due to Egbert Bakker for an extremely helpful conversation and series of emails on ring-composition. Please credit them with anything you find convincing, and attribute all errors of fact and interpretation to me.   1 This is the premise that guided Parry and Lord in their fieldwork, and it is maintained by what I take to be the majority of US Homerists. See, e.g., Martin 1989, esp. 5–12, 89–100; A. Lord 2000; Scodel 2002, esp. 1–20; Doherty 2009: 3; see also Jensen 2011: chs. 1–4.   2 Scodel 2002, esp. 4–13, 36–41.   3 Kakridis 1949: 18–27; Lohmann 1970: 258–63; see also Arthur 1981. For another example of manipulation, see Heubeck’s analysis of the Cyclopeia as aristeia, in Heubeck and Hoekstra 1989: 33, on Od. 9.375–94.

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My point of departure is ring-composition and the plot of the Odyssey, which I argue need to be considered together.4 At first glance, ring-composition may seem unpromising: deciding on what constitutes a ring is always open to the charge of subjectivity, and there is nothing unique about such structures in Homer, or oral poetry.5 Still, I hope to demonstrate that in the Odyssey they create some highly sophisticated effects that, inter alia, help guide reception. For example, a series of rings at the close of Book 4 provides commentary on the passages so related, while simultaneously announcing that the narrative starts over with the divine assembly of Book 5. I mean ‘starts over’ quite literally as I also argue that the Odyssey consists of a repeated story-pattern that structures the Telemachy, Phaeacis and Revenge.6 This sort of highly symmetrical and balanced narrative architecture is in fact a defining feature of Homeric epic that influenced subsequent authors such as Aeschylus and Herodotus. It is thus distinctively Greek and it can also be paralleled in Greek art from the geometric to the classical period.7 Yet nothing matches the sophistication of Homer’s architectonics until Virgil, who learned the technique from Homer.8 Whereas ring-composition is over-diagnosed it is also undertheorised in terms of the large-scale structures I examine, and scholars have traditionally focused on the Iliad, where little agreement has been reached. (As a consequence of this focus, my theoretical survey will be skewed to the Iliadic material.) We are better off when it comes to small-scale rings, where at least five, overlapping explanations have been offered. Thalmann, for example, identifies ‘enclosure’ that creates a ‘self-contained whole’ as the ‘most basic effect’ of ringcomposition.9 As a result, the concluding ring can have a ‘resump 4 Edwards 1991: 44–48; see also Stanley 1993: 6–9. In what follows, I limit my diagnosis of rings to (nearly) identical or antithetical themes, regarding as suspect parallels that require significant decoding.   5 For comparative study, see Douglas 2007; Welch 1981; see also Rubin 1995: 221, 274–7; for Aeschylus and Herodotus, see Van Otterlo 1944, esp. 1–16; Sheppard [1922] 1966: appendix; and Lang 1984: 1–12; for Bacchylides, see Cairns 2010, esp. 41–4, 101–6; further bibliography in Stanley 1993: 307 n. 21.   6 The analysis, first outlined in Cook 1991, has some points of contact with Louden 1999.   7 Myres 1932 and Whitman 1958: chs. 5 and 11 press the analogy between the Iliad and geometric art, though as N. J. Richardson 1993: 4–5 notes this has not been widely accepted. An important exception is Mackay 1999a, esp. 116–17, whose comparanda, however, are from early sixth-century Attic vase-painting; see also Andreae and Flashar 1977; Lewis 1981.   8 For Heliodorus, see Lowe 2000, esp. 137, 235–58; Lowe, pp. 110–11, does not, however, consider ring-composition to be ‘part of the poetics of classical plotting’.   9 Thalmann 1984: 9; cf. Van Otterlo 1944: 3; Douglas 2007: 137–38.

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tive effect’, after a digression, although ‘all inserted passages of this type will be found to add something to the surrounding context’.10 Van Otterlo, on the other hand, argues that rings are created when the author anticipates an outcome at the beginning of a passage.11 Edwards finds that rings anticipate at the beginning and repeat at the end: ‘first comes an anticipation of the outcome of a passage . . . then the idea presented at the beginning is repeated at the end, sometimes reinforced . . . by intervening material or otherwise developed, and poet and listener alike return, with ease and security, to the narrative at the point at which it was dropped’.12 Bakker situates ring-composition in the wider context of framing and addition, noting that Homer routinely introduces complex statements with a preview (a), followed by anecdotal information (b), and then the goal (c), supplying details of the preview. These units are added paratactically, but not randomly: ‘More often than not a unit is not only connected with what precedes but also leads to what follows, and this relation of any given present moment to its past and its future is what gives the listener an orientation and the discourse its meaning.’13 The individual units thus have a reciprocal relationship so that (a) frames (b) and (c), and (b) also frames (c), while (c) adds to (b) and (a), and (b) likewise adds to (a). (See Fig. 5.1). (A) PREVIEW ADDS

(B) ANECDOTAL INFORMATION

FRAMES

(C) GOAL

Figure 5.1  Framing and adding Source: Adapted from Bakker 1997: 119

For example, the statement that Menelaus killed Scamandrius is followed by an anecdote and description of how Menelaus kills him (Il. 5.49–58). The anecdote, about Artemis having taught Scamandrius to hunt, is not a digression from the main narrative but allows ‘the killing proper [to] take place within the context of the victim’s tradition’.14 Accordingly, ‘The global-framing statement, uttered during a moment of orientation, has become a specific, fully contextualised concept by 10 Thalmann 1984: 11. 11 Van Otterlo 1944: 43. 12 Edwards 1991: 48. 13 Bakker 1997: 115; cf. Bassett 1938: 119–28; Lang 1984: 1–12; Thornton 1984: ch. 7. 14 Bakker 1997: 118.

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Table 5.1  The sequence of days in the Iliad A B C D E F Eʹ Dʹ Cʹ Bʹ Aʹ

1, 9, 1 and 12 days 1 day 1 day 1 day 1 day 1 night 1 day 1 day 1 day 1 day 12, 1, 9 and 1 day

Book 1 Fight Burial Wall Truncated battle Embassy Great battle Fight Funeral rites Games Book 24

Source: Whitman 1958: 257

the time the speaker reaches the goal.’15 In other words, (c) differs fundamentally from (a) on account of the intervening information, even though it repeats its contents. None of these scholars investigates large-scale patterns. Whitman offers a genetic explanation, arguing that ring-composition originated as a mnemonic device used in small-scale narratives.16 Ringcomposition loses its original function, however, ‘when it becomes the structural basis of a fifteen-thousand-line poem such as the Iliad. It has become an artistic principle.’17 By ‘artistic principle’, Whitman means that the structural properties of rings were exploited to balance and frame, so that ‘the use of “hysteron proteron,” giving the effect of concentric circles, was gradually transformed from a mnemonic device to an architectonic one’.18 One of Whitman’s most important findings concerns the Iliad’s temporal sequence, in which Books 1 and 24 balance each other, with Book 9 at the centre (Table 5.1). In an earlier study, Myres identified Book 9 as the temporal and structural centre of the Iliad.19 Richardson, however, notes that Myres’s analysis has been sceptically received because it divides the narrative unevenly.20 Speaking of ring-composition generally, Gaisser declares that ‘The primary objection to this type of structural analysis is that the scale is not always consistent.’21 15 Bakker 1997: 121. 16 Whitman 1958: 98, 254; cf., e.g., Lohmann 1970: 209–12, 284; Rubin 1995: 275. 17 Whitman 1958: 98. 18 Whitman 1958: 98. 19 Myres 1932, esp. 283–94. 20 N. J. Richardson 1993: 4–5. 21 Gaisser 1969: 2.

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Although Richardson rejects the level of detail in Whitman’s analysis, there is ultimately little to distinguish between his and Whitman’s understanding of how large-scale rings actually operate. Richardson observes that whereas there is broad consensus that Books 1 and 24 complement and balance each other, scholars have had difficulty identifying the Iliad’s structural centre. He then proceeds to review pairs of books in chiastic order, concluding that meaningful parallelism can be observed as far as six books, or roughly 50 per cent, of the way into the poem in either direction.22 The inference he draws is that the poet ‘will naturally take most care over the opening and closing parts of his work, where consequently we find the clearest correspondences, providing the narrative “frame” ’.23 As we approach the centre, however, the rings ‘gradually fade out’.24 Douglas observes that rings are a species of structural parallelism, which, drawing on the work of Roman Jakobson, she sees as ‘hardwired in the brain’:25 ‘Jakobson’s idea implies an aesthetic theory about the satisfaction derived from the brain making images of itself at work and duplicating its own structure and activity.’26 This is why authors throughout history have employed ring-composition: ‘The brain works by making parallelisms. No other explanation is necessary.’27 As for why authors should resort to the chiastically ordered parallelism of ring-composition, Douglas observes that rings are difficult to execute, and can thus authenticate narrator and narrative.28 Douglas finds a second explanation for ring-structures in their ability to provide closure through return to the beginning. This she identifies as product of ‘a home seeking urge’, concluding ‘that “homing” is another of our fundamental mental resources, like making analogies and parallelisms’.29 Meaning, however, is conditioned by context: ‘The myth of eternal return can be taken to be comforting and stabilising, or it can be seen as a frustratingly sinister trap. Alternatively, it is equally possible for every ending to be an opening on a new ring, a philosophy of renewal and regeneration.’30 22 Cf. Bierl 2012: 173–4. 23 N. J. Richardson 1993: 13. 24 N. J. Richardson 1993: 5; cf. Whitman 1958: 258–9; Lewis 1981: 92. 25 Although Douglas’s analysis assumes conscious intent in the construction of rings, her theoretical model could be used to explain the lack of scholarly consensus on ring-composition in terms of both theorisation and diagnosis. It could even be used to assert that alternative structural patterns are not inherently exclusive. 26 Douglas 2007: 40, 72. 27 Douglas 2007: 99–100. 28 Douglas 2007: 27–30. 29 Douglas 2007: 134, 137. 30 Douglas 2007: 73–4.

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Douglas identifies these formal elements as characteristic of largescale ring-compositions:31 a prologue introduces the central theme and characters; the narrative is divided in two by a ‘mid-turn’ echoing the prologue and conclusion; the second half of the narrative runs parallel to the first in chiastic order; all subsections are clearly demarcated, often by minor ring-structures, especially the mid-turn; closure is signalled with the repetition of key words and themes from prologue and mid-turn; an epilogue, or ‘latch’, is common in long narratives and sets ‘the text as a whole in a larger context, less parochial, more humanist, or even metaphysical’;32 to identify individual rings, we need ‘at least two distinctive items found in both members of the pair, but nowhere else’.33 In contrast to Richardson, Douglas lays particular emphasis on the ‘mid-turn’, which she finds definitive of ring-composition and its most important feature.34 The flanking rings serve to frame a structural centre which they thus identify and emphasise.35 However, ‘The midturn is not in the middle in any quantitative sense. The best way to recognise it is by the two supporting series flanking it on either side and showing a conspicuous correspondence to each other.’36 To identify the Iliad’s mid-turn, Douglas turns to Whitman’s analysis of the temporal sequence. As Whitman notes, the embassy is flanked by single days of fighting, and Douglas is able to find, in addition to their clearly signposted temporal markers, two corresponding ‘items’ that identify them as parallel: ‘On day 4 Zeus sends up his eagle (8.247) . . . and Zeus also prophesies Patroclus’s death and Achilles’ entry into the war. On day 5 the eagle portent is repeated and the prophecies of day 4 come true.’37 One may add that Zeus supplements his prophecy in Book 8 with further prophecy in Book 15, in both cases to Hera. In contrast to what he does in the other battle narratives, Zeus forbids the other gods from interfering, while he actively does so. After praising the ‘excellence’ of the poem’s mid-turn, however, Douglas declares that ‘at this point my eulogy for the Iliad’s compliance with ring conventions must come to a pause’.38 The difficulty is that Douglas finds the ‘presumptive parallels’ between the remaining days and nights to be ‘weak, barely recognisable’.39 Although the tem31 Douglas 2007, esp. 36–8. 32 Douglas 2007: 126. 33 Douglas 2007: 89. 34 Douglas 2007: e.g., x, 31–2, 34, 85–6. 35 Assumed by Whitman 1958; see also Cairns 2010: 42–4, 80–1. 36 Douglas 2007: 109. 37 Douglas 2007: 114. 38 Douglas 2007: 117. 39 Douglas 2007: 119.

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Table 5.2  The structure of the Iliad A B C D Cʹ Bʹ Aʹ

Quarrel: between Agamemnon and Achilles Day of battle: the Greeks triumph, led by Diomedes Day of battle: the Trojans triumph, led by Hector Night-time embassy: Agamemnon offers to reconcile with Achilles Day of battle: the Trojans triumph, led by Hector Day of battle: the Greeks triumph, led by Achilles Reconciliation: between Priam and Achilles

poral sequence does identify the mid-turn, better results obtain if we link the individual battles: assemblies in Books 1 and 2 are followed by a battle lasting from Books 3 to 7. It is framed by complementary duels, between Menelaus and Paris in Book 3, and between Ajax and Hector in Book 7.40 The intervening narrative is structured by the aristeia of Diomedes, widely recognised as a surrogate Achilles.41 Whereas Agamemnon and Achilles quarrel in the assembly of Book 1, and the quarrel is echoed by the speech of Thersites in the assembly of Book 2, in Book 19 we have another assembly in which Agamemnon and Achilles reconcile, followed by the aristeia of Achilles in Books 20 to 22. His aristeia is bracketed by complementary duels, between Aeneas and Achilles in Book 20, and between Hector and Achilles in Book 22. Poseidon spirits Aeneas away before he is killed, a service that Aphrodite performs for Paris in Book 3, while Hector loses the duels to Ajax and Achilles. Finally, Zeus remains aloof from these battles while the other gods participate, and Ares and Aphrodite are wounded42 (Table 5.2). In other words, more than one organisational structure is at work: a sequence of days, and a contrapuntal sequence of battles. Whether or not it is legitimate to pursue the analysis to the level of granular detail attempted by Myres, Whitman and more recently Stanley, the overarching structure seems clear.43 To sum up before proceeding to the Odyssey: Douglas offers a cognitive theory that can be applied to ring-composition at any scale of narrative and that assumes an author consciously striving to create the effect as a source of aesthetic pleasure. On the other hand, Bakker’s theory that small-scale ring-structures provide orientation for the listener can also be extended to large-scale compositions. It is thus essentially a functional theory, but it is not ultimately i­ncompatible 40 Sheppard [1922] 1966: 34–5. 41 Sheppard [1922] 1966: 40, 46; N. J. Richardson 1993: 10; Scodel 2002: 27; Cook [1999] 2009: 143 with n. 35; Christensen forthcoming, with n. 3. 42 N. J. Richardson 1993: 10–11; cf., however, Il. 22.209–13, 403–4. 43 Stanley 1993; see Nimis 1999.

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Table 5.3  Framing the Necyia A Cicones B Lotus Eaters C Cyclopes Bʹ Aeolians Aʹ Laestrygonians D Circe E Elpenor Cʹ Necyia Eʹ Elpenor Dʹ Circe F Sirens G Scylla Cʹʹ Thrinacia Gʹ Charybdis Fʹ Calypso Source: Adapted from Whitman 1958: 288

with the view that such structures are also a source of aesthetic pleasure. Where Bakker and Douglas differ most significantly is in their assessment of the enclosed centre: for Bakker the centre adds and contextualises, so that the effect of the concluding element is cumulative, while for Douglas the centre is the most significant element of the structure. The Odyssean material is varied on just this point and can be used to support both positions. Odyssean ring-compositions not only reflect the balanced aesthetic that defines archaic Greek art generally, but are also distinguished by marked variation that, together with their complexity, suggests a high degree of self-consciousness in their production. Whitman unquestionably played a role in the neglect of Odyssean ring-composition. He finds that, in contrast to the Iliad, which ‘follows a strict Geometric design . . . . [v]ery little of the sort occurs in the Odyssey, and where it does occur, asymmetrical elements are more frequent, the responsions less careful and less significant’.44 Nevertheless, he notes that the Apologue is structured by elaborate ring-composition serving to frame the Necyia (Table 5.3).45 Confirmation of Whitman’s analysis can be found in the organisation of the Necyia, which is likewise structured by ring-composition (Table 5.4). 44 Whitman 1958: 287. 45 Whitman 1958: 288; cf. Woodhouse 1930: 43–4.

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Table 5.4  The structure of the Necyia with frame Apologue A Circe describes the journey to Hades to Odysseus B Elpenor’s death Necyia C Voyage to Hades bʹ First-person interview with Elpenor i Refusal to interview Anticleia ii First-person interview with Tiresias iʹ First-person interview with Anticleia D Third-person interviews with mothers of pre-Iliadic heroes, including the mother and wife of Heracles Intermezzo E Arete praises Odysseus’ person, acknowledges him as xeinos and requests more gifts F Echeneus approves G Alcinous promises gifts and return Fʹ Odysseus approves Eʹ Alcinous praises Odysseus’ speech and requests more stories Necyia Dʹ First-person interviews with Iliadic heroes and Heracles Cʹ Voyage from Hades Apologue Bʹ Elpenor’s Burial Aʹ Circe describes the journey home to Odysseus

The ‘resumptive’ effect after the Necyia is so stark – Circe provides Odysseus with the roadmap of his return that she claimed he would receive from Tiresias – that scholars have sometimes labelled the entire episode an interpolation.46 As I have noted elsewhere, the Intermezzo, with its acknowledgement of Odysseus as Arete’s xeinos, promise of further xeinia and affirmation of return, occupies the structural centre of the narrative set on Scheria.47 It thus corresponds approximately to a mid-turn for the Phaeacian episode. Nevertheless, as we shall see, the Necyia as a whole, in which Odysseus learns the metaphysics of his and his family’s destiny in contrast to those of the heroes of old, constitutes the mid-turn of the poem. Like the Apologue, the Telemachy is a quasi-autonomous narrative integrated into the main story by structure and theme, and it has approximately the same dimensions (Telemachy: 2,222 verses; Apologue: 2,233). It is likewise enclosed by ring-structures, which are, however, less comprehensive than those organising the Apologue. Neither do they frame the centre, as there is none: in its place we have complementary scenes of sacrificial and wedding banquets at Pylus and Sparta comprising 50 per cent of the Telemachy (Ithaca: 1,100 verses; Pylus and Sparta: 1,121), themselves organised by simple rings 46 E.g., Page 1955b: ch. 2; cf. Nagler 1980; Heubeck in Heubeck and Hoekstra 1989: 75–7. 47 Cook 1995: 74–6.

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in which ritual feasting brackets stories about Odysseus.48 Nor does the opening frame anticipate the conclusion, as the initial scenes on Ithaca are fully developed and the closing scenes cursory. Instead, the closing scenes are designed, in part, to bring out the contrast with Pylus and Sparta: this is the reason for the abrupt mid-sentence scene-change from Sparta to Ithaca (4.625). Finally, since there is no centre there is no ‘mid-turn’ of the sort that Douglas requires of a wellturned ring. I do not see this as supporting Richardson’s theory that poets expend less effort on shaping the central portion of the narrative than its beginning and end. Nor is it a sign of diminished artistry: the Apologue demonstrates an ability to create ring-structures as elaborate as any discovered by Douglas, when occasion calls for it. Instead, ring-composition articulates the formal boundaries of the Telemachy, while the enclosed narrative contextualises the situation on Ithaca by providing complementary images of well-ordered societies to which it can be compared. The episode at Sparta concludes by returning to the themes of proper feasting and marriage with which it began. The narrative then shifts to the antithetical scene on Ithaca in which Penelope’s suitors amuse themselves in advance of dinner. The shift echoes the gaming and feasting of the suitors in Books 1 and 2. The resulting ring is reinforced by further echoes of opening books that return the narrative, without its protagonist, incrementally to the Telemachy’s first scene (Table 5.5). Noemon next arrives at the palace to ask Antinous and Eurymachus if they know when Telemachus will return from Pylus, for, he adds, Telemachus borrowed his ship and he needs it (4.630ff.). This echoes the earlier scene in which Athena impersonates Telemachus and secures the ship from Noemon (2.382–7). Antinous then convenes the suitors to complain about Telemachus’ voyage, and requests a ship with twenty companions to lay an ambush (4.659–72). The scene parallels the assembly Telemachus convenes in Book 2 to denounce the suitors. Antinous censures him for the denunciation, after which Telemachus requests a ship. Noemon only appears in these two passages, and these are the only public assemblies in the Telemachy. The herald Medon then informs Penelope of Telemachus’ journey and the suitors’ plot (4.675ff.). Penelope complains to her maidservants that she is already bereft of a ‘famous husband’, and now the storm-winds have snatched away her son (4.716–41). The scene 48 A similar pairing at the centre of a ring occurs in Odyssey 4, where complementary speeches by Menelaus about his travels frame contrasting speeches, by Helen and Menelaus, about Odysseus. See Gaisser 1969: 37 n. 46.

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Table 5.5  The Telemachy’s narrative Frame A Divine assembly B Athena impersonates a family xeinos and encourages a grieving Telemachus C The suffering Penelope i Phemius sings the painful return of the Greeks ii Penelope complains iii Telemachus instructs her to return to her quarters and weave iv The suitors raise a din and pray to sleep with her v Athena puts Penelope to sleep D Telemachus assembles the Ithakans; is censured by Antinous; requests a ship E Noemon lends a ship to ‘Telemachus’ F Pylus i Proper sacrificial feast on Pylus ii Stories of Odysseus, Troy, the returning Greeks, Agamemnon iʹ Proper sacrificial feast on Pylus Fʹ Sparta i Proper wedding feast at Sparta iiʹ Stories of Odysseus, Troy, the returning Greeks, Agamemnon iʹ Proper wedding feast at Sparta Eʹ Noemon asks about the ship he lent ‘Telemachus’ Dʹ Antinous assembles the suitors; censures Telemachus; requests ship Cʹ The suffering Penelope i Medon announces the plot to kill the returning Telemachus ii Penelope complains iii Eurycleia instructs her to go to her upper chamber and pray iv The suitors raise a din and declare she is about to wed v Penelope falls asleep Bʹ Athena impersonates Penelope’s sister and encourages a grieving Penelope in her sleep Aʹ Divine assemblya a

  See Myres 1952: 3, 13

echoes Penelope’s only previous appearance, when she complains to Phemius of his singing the Returns of the Greeks, since she yearns for her ‘famous husband’ (1.337–44: 1.344~4.726 = 4.816; her mention of Laertes at 4.738 also echoes that of Athena at 1.189). The rings created by Noemon and his ship, the two assemblies and Penelope’s grief are strongly marked and easily recognisable. The rings bracketing the Telemachy serve more than one purpose. First, as Bakker has argued in the case of small-scale compositions, they do not simply return to the point of departure, but the intervening narrative ensures that this is a return with a difference: we now see Ithaca in explicit contrast with Pylus and Sparta. In particular, the ἔρανος described in the closing scene at Sparta (4.621–4) contrasts sharply with the feasting of the suitors, which Athena sarcastically

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declares is no picnic (1.226).49 Moreover, Telemachus now clearly poses a threat to the suitors, with the result that the situation on Ithaca too has changed. Finally, the ring created by the second divine assembly formally subordinates the Telemachy to the main narrative so that it contextualises the story of Odysseus: this is the situation, wife and son Odysseus will return to. We shall presently see that the Telemachy is subordinated to the main narrative in another way as well. The second assembly is thus ‘resumptive’, returning the listener to the nostos of Odysseus announced in the first assembly after an extended anecdote about Telemachus. But the sequential return to the poem’s opening scene also serves to announce that the story is starting over with a new cast of characters. If this analysis is correct, then it supports Whitman and Scodel’s argument that the assemblies of Books 1 and 5 are, in a sense, the same.50 Telemachus consequently hears about his father’s presence in Ogygia on the same morning that Odysseus departs for home. Ithaca in Book 4 also helps frame the second divine assembly, where it is balanced by Ogygia in Book 5. The scenes are of nearly equal length (Ithaca: 233 verses; Ogygia: 215), and serve double duty structurally: Ithaca frames the Telemachy and the second assembly, while Ogygia corresponds to Ithaca in Book 4 as part of the frame, and to Ithaca in Book 1 as the scene immediately following an assembly. The scenes that follow both assemblies thus begin with the arrival of a god to announce the hero’s departure, the hero’s preparations to depart by ship, assisted by a goddess, and the departure itself. In Books 4 and 5, on the other hand, we have contrasting images of heralds, Medon and Hermes, arriving at the chambers of Penelope and Calypso to make a momentous announcement, and a resulting scene of grief over loss by Odysseus’ consort.51 Noemon and his ship also do double duty: his loan of the ship in Book 2 is balanced by his need of it in Book 4, which in turn corresponds to Odysseus’ need of a ship in Book 5; and it precipitates a departure of the suitors from Ithaca that parallels Odysseus’ departure for Ithaca. Finally, the assembly in Book 5 likewise does double duty, both as the goal of the narrative regression that concludes the first narrative sequence, and as the point of departure that begins the next one. Most important thematically is the contrast between Odysseus’ con49 The Spartan ἔρανος is condemned by Page 1955b: 69; defended by S. West in Heubeck et al. 1988, on 4.621–4. 50 Whitman and Scodel 1981, with the important qualifications of Scodel 2008, esp. 116; see also S. D. Olson 1995: ch. 5; Marks 2008: 36–44. 51 For Hermes’ role as herald, which he notoriously does not perform in the Iliad, see, e.g., Hes. Op. 80, Th. 939; A. Ag. 514–15.

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sorts: in the natural order of things, Calypso is meant to be without a mortal companion, just as Penelope is meant to have one. Odysseus’ presence on Ogygia has caused inverse disruptions in the natural order of both islands. Circumstances have compelled Penelope to become a Calypso or Circe, and for all her human limitations Penelope exerts a control over the suitors comparable to the control Circe exercises over Odysseus and the crew, Calypso over Odysseus, or Helen over her husband and Telemachus.52 This is what gives the contrast point. An inference I wish to draw from the way the transition to the Phaeacis is managed is that Book 4 does not represent a natural break in the narrative; indeed the composer has gone to some lengths to erase what might have been one. I see this as weighing against the possibility of four-book performance units.53 There is no comparable balancing of themes in the transition from the Phaeacis to the Revenge. Instead, the transition is desultory, but the effect is again to erase narrative boundaries (Table 5.6). The ‘second proem’ precedes a divine assembly, as does the first, but lacks a formal parallel in Book 5. Poseidon appears at the same structural juncture in Aʹ as he would had the ring-composition continued with Dʹ. The preceding rings may have suggested the entry of Poseidon into the narrative at this point, and even introduced an element of suspense, since they imply he will destroy the ship with Odysseus still on board. But even though ring-composition is not used to return to the beginning, it still frames the entire narrative set on Scheria. What remains to be explained, then, is why A–D and their corresponding primes are narrated in the same rather than chiastic order. It is now necessary to consider the plot of the Odyssey, which as noted is organised by a repeated sequence of themes. Moreover, the pattern is complex, with a number of features that do not have an obvious morphological explanation at the level of the type-scene. Entries in roman type occur in all three narratives, while those italicised occur in two, indicated in Table 5.7 by their initials ‘T’ (Telemachy), ‘P’ (Phaeacis) and ‘R’ (Revenge). The thematic sequence elucidates the end of the Phaeacis. The feast in Alcinous’ palace in Book 13 corresponds to theme (40), so that the sequence is now complete. As in the Telemachy, this is itself a ringstructure, followed by a series of further themes that provide closure to the Scherian narrative (Table 5.7, Fʹ to Dʹ). The last four themes, however, belong to the next iteration of the sequence. The feasting of 52 Zeitlin 1995: 139; on Helen see M. L. West [1975] 2011; Clader 1976. 53 On the book divisions, see now Jensen 2011: ch. 10

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Table 5.6  The Phaeacis and transition to the Revenge A Divine assembly: Athena complains about Odysseus’ treatmenta B Journey of a god, Hermes, to earth C Odysseus sets out from Ogygia to return home D Poseidon destroys Odysseus’ ship as it reaches Scheria E Odysseus arrives on Scheria at night F Odysseus enters the palace at night i Phaeacian elders pour libations to Hermes ii Odysseus approaches Arete and supplicates her iʹ Pontonoos prepares libations to Zeus G Phaeacians feast all day in honour of Odysseusb H Odysseus narrates his adventures Gʹ Phaeacians feast all day in honour of Odysseus Fʹ Odysseus departs from the palace at night iʹ Pontonoos prepares libations to Zeus iiʹ Odysseus pledges Arete and departs Eʹ Odysseus and Phaeacians set out from Scheria at night Second ‘proem’ (13.88–92) e Odysseus and Phaeacians arrive at Ithaca at night; Phaeacians return home Aʹ Divine assembly: Poseidon complains about Odysseus’ treatment Bʹ Journey of a god, Poseidon, to earth Cʹ Phaeacians arrive at Scheria Dʹ Poseidon destroys ship that conveyed Odysseus as it reaches Scheria a Note that A–Aʹ and F–Fʹ are complementary scenes of nocturnal arrival and departure that frame the Phaeacis and the palace sequence respectively. b For the significance of the ring, see Nagy 2010: 92–102.

Table 5.7  The plot of the Odyssey  1. The story begins with a proem characterising Odysseus (TR)   2. and a divine assembly in which a god complains to Zeus about Odysseus’ return and others’ transgressions,   3. followed by a divine arming scene (TP) and journey to an island  4. where the god takes in the surroundings and is recognised by the ruler, who offers hospitality (TP).   5. While others feast,   6. the hero is: under the control of a powerful female, and isolated from the community, in his yearning for Odysseus’ return.  7. A goddess rouses and assists the hero (TP)   8. who secures a ship, provisions it with female and even divine (TP) assistance, and undertakes a nocturnal (TR) voyage, a  9. but Poseidon destroys the ship as it nears its destination (PR). 10. Athena facilitates the hero’s arrival, gives tharsos to a royal youth meeting an intimidating stranger (TP), and her olive tree offers protection (PR). 11. A royal youth, the great-grandchild of Poseidon (TP), welcomes the newly arrived and awakened (PR) hero on the beach,

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structure as interpretation in the homeric 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40.

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who is offered food or hints he is hungry. The hero describes himself and his quest, but withholds his name, followed by stories of Troy, epiphanies of the hero and goddess, and the hero being advised to seek further assistance from a named individual. The hero proceeds to his initial destination, the home of a man noteworthy for hospitality and piety, where he spends the night and his appearance is transformed, rendering him godlike (TR). The hero is escorted to a sacred grove and spring, b where prayers are offered for Odysseus’ return (PR), and then to a palace, which is his final destination. A wedding is imminent, the community feasts in celebration, and the queen enjoys noteworthy prominence. The hero marvels at the palace and guard dog(s) (PR) and hospitality is initially called into question, but the person responsible is admonished. The royal household offers the hero hospitality, and he is awarded a seat of honour next to the king (TP). The hero does not disclose and actively conceals (PR) his identity, but an identification is made by the queen, based on physical appearance, who tests the disguised Odysseus, and the king declares he would grant Odysseus part of his kingdom (TP). Stories of Odysseus at Troy cause the hero and/or host to weep. If the hero conceals his identity, royal youths insult his appearance and prowess, he enters a contest which he wins, thereby avenging the insult, and reveals his identity (PR). Goods and honours are offered to placate the offended (PR) hero. The hero or host narrates his adventures, which include or are followed by catabasis, and accounts of Odysseus, Agamemnon, Achilles (PR) and a grieving parent. c The hero is offered, or recounts receiving, gifts, followed by further feasting.

Odysseus sails day and night to Scheria. The stay in the city of Pherae in the Telemachy occurs at this juncture. c On Menelaus’ Egyptian adventure, see Powell 1970; Nagler 1980; A. Lord 2000: 165–9. a

b

the Phaeacians in Book 13 creates a ring (Gʹ) that also corresponds to theme (5). Odysseus’ pledge of Arete before departing (Fʹ) echoes his earlier supplication on entering the palace and reminds us of the queen’s prominence. It thus corresponds to theme (6), as does his isolation during the feast. His nocturnal departure from Scheria (Eʹ) balances his nocturnal arrival and corresponds to theme (8). The ‘second proem’, divine assembly and Poseidon’s journey to earth occur during the Phaeacians’ return voyage, and the section is framed by scenes of Odysseus sleeping and waking on Ithaca. Nevertheless all

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of the themes in the previous iterations of the pattern are represented except (4) and (7). The sequence is thus: 5, 6, 8, 1, 2, 3, 9 and so on. Like the rings at the end of the Telemachy, these themes serve double duty, simultaneously concluding the Phaeacis and launching the Revenge. The effect is to erase the very narrative boundaries that the story-pattern would naturally impose: it is as though we are dealing with a poem designed to be unperformable in the sense of being unstoppable. Other departures from the sequence of themes can be explained by the process of local adaptation, compression and expansion. In the Phaeacis, for example, the initial destination is eliminated, while in the Revenge, Eumaeus’ hut, to which Odysseus first proceeds, provides a setting in which to develop the themes of disguise and testing, and to reunite Odysseus with his son. These sorts of examples could be much expanded, but the sequence still remains fairly uniform, both in the recurrence of themes and in the order in which they appear. Type-scenes, it should be noted, can undergo similar expansion and compression while maintaining a fixed thematic sequence. Structurally parallel themes can also resonate with each other in meaningful ways.54 For example, the sequence confirms that Odysseus’ boast about his skill as an archer in the Phaeacis foreshadows the mnēsterophonia:55 the quarrel with the Phaeacian youths that precipitates the boast is structurally parallel to the mnēsterophonia, in which Odysseus uses his bow to kill the suitors. Moreover, in making his boast Odysseus declares that he would not compete with Heracles and Eurytus in archery (8.223–8), while immediately before the mnēsterophonia we learn that Odysseus’ bow once belonged to Eurytus and was given to him by his son, Iphitus, whom Heracles killed and whose horses he stole even though Iphitus was his guest (21.11–41). It is thus with the xeinion of a xeinos killed in flagrant violation of the laws of xeiniē that Odysseus kills the suitors for violating those same laws in similar ways. As a further example of such intratextual engagement, consider the scenes of recognition by the queen: Helen identifies Telemachus from his physical appearance (4.138–46); Arete in turn identifies the clothing Odysseus is wearing and through this recognises that he has had uncertain dealings with her daughter (7.233–9). These parallel scenes inject suspense into Odysseus’ encounter with Penelope as to whether, 54 Cook 2012 provides a preliminary survey of the parallels between the three narrative threads and the plot of the Homeric Hymn to Demeter; on the arrival scenes in Books 3, 6 and 13, see also Cook 1998; for the parallels between the Phaeacis and Revenge see Lang 1969. 55 See Scodel, this volume, pp. 71–2.

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and in what way, the queen will identify the stranger (such expectations may have been reinforced by traditions in which Penelope does recognise him).56 The poet’s response is to incorporate and displace both identifications: when the disguised Odysseus describes what he wore to Troy, Penelope is able to recognise the clothing, the person described as her husband, and the stranger as his guest-friend (19.221–35). Yet she ‘recognises’ Odysseus in a narrative of the distant past. Afterwards, a mother-figure, Eurycleia, recognises the stranger’s resemblance to Odysseus, and then that he is indeed Odysseus, on the basis of his hunting scar (19.361ff.). Further analysis of these engagements is for another study. More important in the present context is the typology of the sequence. It is generally recognised that the plot of Homeric epic is structured by the ‘withdrawal and return’ story-pattern which, Albert Lord argues, originates in fertility myth: The essential pattern of the Iliad is the same as that of the Odyssey; they are both the story of an absence that causes havoc to the beloved of the absentee and of his return to set matters right . . . The rape of Persephone in all its forms as a fertility myth underlies all epic tales of this sort, and until the historical is completely triumphant over the mythic, all such tales are likely to be drawn into the pattern of the myth.57 Six years later, Mary Louise Lord published a detailed comparison of the Hymn to Demeter with the epics. At the outset, Lord cautions that she is ‘not suggesting literary indebtedness, but instead similarity in the use of old and widespread epic themes’.58 Nevertheless, she makes the plot of the Hymn the basis of her comparison: The narrative pattern . . . centers on the following principal elements with accompanying themes: (1) the withdrawal of the hero (or heroine), which sometimes takes the form of a long absence; this element is often closely linked with a quarrel and the loss of someone beloved; (2) disguise during the absence or upon the return of the hero, frequently accompanied by a deceitful story; (3) the theme of hospitality to the wandering hero; 56 Katz 1991: 93–113; Felson-Rubin 1994: 3–4, 56–60; Doherty 1995: ch. 1, 140–4; Murnaghan [1987] 2011: 36–7, ch. 4; S. Saïd 2011: 285–9, 297–302; for sustained analysis of the episode, see now Levaniouk 2011. 57 A. Lord 2000: 186; cf. H. Clarke 1989: 70–2. 58 M. L. Lord [1967] 1994: 182; cf. Sowa 1984; Nickel 2003; Cook 2012.

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(4) the recognition of the hero, or at least a fuller revelation of his identity; (5) disaster during or occasioned by the absence; (6) the reconciliation of the hero and return.59 Although Lord observes that the themes generally occur in the same order, she argues that the sequence may be altered to suit the needs of the narrative. This obviously obtains when, as she also notes, important themes are repeated for emphasis. Lord finds that themes (2)–(6) are well represented in the Odyssey, but that the first theme is not. As a possible echo, she offers the wrath of Poseidon, which leads to Odysseus’ absence and the death of his companions, though she concedes that the absence is not motivated by the hero’s loss (nor is it motivated by his wrath). As a second possibility, she offers Nestor’s account of the quarrel between the Atreidai, who serve as narrative foils for Odysseus. Neither parallel is direct, nor do they occur in sequence. Finally, Lord observes that Demeter’s withdrawal differs from Achilles’ and Odysseus’ because it takes the form of a journey in search of her daughter. Lord does, however, note the parallel supplied by the Telemachy: ‘one of the intrusive patterns in the Odyssey is Telemachus’ quest for news of his absent father, an initiatory exploit for Telemachus’.60 In the same year that Lord’s study appeared, Rose published a comparative analysis of what he terms a ‘revenge pattern’ in the Odyssey: 1. The hero suffers outrage or disgrace; 2. initiates a plan of revenge; 3. departs from home as part of the strategy; 4. returns secretly and unexpectedly; 5. and exacts revenge, although his enemy enjoys an advantage in strength or numbers.61 This is transparently the same story-pattern analysed by Lord. Rose’s findings differ from hers because he only treats Odyssean instantiations and includes themes shared by nearly all the narratives. In so restricting his evidence, however, he exposes what seems to be an epic variation on the pattern: the hero’s secret return for revenge. Moreover, whereas the theme of return for revenge features prominently in both epics, that of secret return is restricted to the Odyssey, 59 M. L. Lord [1967] 1994: 181–2 (my formatting). 60 M. L. Lord [1967] 1994: 185. 61 Abstracted from G. Rose 1967: 396.

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where it can be explained by its centrality to Odysseus’ strategy for killing the suitors.62 Rose finds the theme of angry withdrawal after suffering outrage so pervasive that he includes it in the pattern even though he notes that ‘Orestes and Odysseus also return unexpectedly from an absence and successfully accomplish their revenge. Missing from the motif is, obviously, a departure from home as part of the strategy.’63 This is a variation on Lord’s claim that in the Odyssey the hero’s ‘withdrawal or long absence, associated with anger and the loss of a loved one, is not so clear-cut as in the Iliad’.64 Nickel goes so far as to say that ‘The Hymn to Demeter is the only poem from the Greek oral tradition, besides the Iliad, whose narrative is structured around the story pattern of wrath, withdrawal, and return.’65 The Telemachy, however, exhibits all of the elements that Lord and Rose identify as belonging to the first theme. As one might expect, the Telemachy includes other themes as well, but what it pointedly does not include is a secret return for revenge. Yet if we consider events independently of character we see that the poem describes a withdrawal by Telemachus followed by Odysseus’ return. What I am suggesting, then, is that the Telemachy supplies the missing elements of the pattern, and in their proper order, so that the Odyssey can be seen as a story of withdrawal and return.66 This combined account emerges as the ultimate example of ring-composition in the poem, one that represents ‘a philosophy of renewal and regeneration’. Form is content. I thus suggest that the withdrawal of Telemachus makes Odysseus’ return possible. Indeed, the Hymn to Demeter models just such a scenario, in which Demeter’s withdrawal is responsible for Persephone’s return. The Telemachy accomplishes this in thematic terms by initiating the pattern of withdrawal and return. It thereby allows Odysseus to return in a manner appropriate to the situation on Ithaca. Odysseus usurps, as it were, the return for revenge that Telemachus prepares for with his angry departure. For this reason, Odysseus must return first, leaving Telemachus stranded in Sparta for nearly a month. Moreover, 62 The theme of disguised return is, however, clearly reproduced in Patroclus’ reentry into battle wearing Achilles’ armour. What makes this of special interest in the present context is that the Return themes are thus distributed among closely related characters (on which, see below). 63 G. Rose 1967: 396. 64 M. L. Lord [1967] 1994: 184. 65 Nickel 2003: 60. 66 This is ideologically interesting as the interchangeability of father and son affirms the ability of the father to reproduce himself in the son. This bears directly on the symbolism of Laertes’ garden (on which, see below).

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the displacement of the son by the father in the pattern is abetted by the rings that manage the transition between the Telemachy and the Phaeacis: not only does the device subordinate the Telemachy thematically to the story of Odysseus, but it also creates a bridge that brings the narratives into structural relation with one another as two halves of a single withdrawal and return. The Telemachy twice contextualises the main narrative: by defining the circumstances of Odysseus’ return and by initiating a withdrawal and return to which it supplies the themes of a lost loved one, quarrelling, suffering outrage and angry withdrawal. The thematic sequence that I have identified as the Odyssey’s plot is thus a journey sequence used to describe both withdrawal and return. The sequence starts over before the Phaeacis concludes in order to integrate it and the Revenge into a single twostage narrative of return. The withdrawal and return story that is the Odyssey meets the formal requirements of large-scale ring-composition as outlined by Douglas: the beginning is echoed at the end, and it has a clearly marked mid-turn that echoes both. The prologue looks forward to the mnēsterophonia and reunion with Penelope by speaking of how Odysseus yearns for his wife, and the contest (1.18: ἀέθλων) that awaits him even among his own people (19: φίλοισι).67 The divine assembly reinforces this with the paradigmatic account of how Orestes killed Aegisthus for courting Clytemnestra (39: μνάασθαι ἄκοιτιν) and murdering Agamemnon. Athena then declares that she will place ‘manhood’ in Telemachus (89: μένος) so he can denounce the suitors of Penelope (91: μνηστήρεσσιν). More generally, the principal actors and themes from the Telemachy converge in the mnēsterophonia and anagnōrismos. When Athena arrives on Ithaca, Telemachus is daydreaming about his father scattering the suitors and himself gaining honour (113–18). This directly foreshadows the mnēsterophonia in which he joins his father in killing the suitors, thanks to Athena’s gift of menos. Telemachus’ conflict with the suitors in the assembly of Book 2 and their subsequent ambush provide further echoes of the mnēsterophonia, itself both a contest and an ambush. Athena is present in bird form to oversee the slaughter (22.239–40), while in Book 1 she mentions Odysseus’ poisoned arrows (260–4), encourages Telemachus to kill the suitors (294–6) and departs as a bird (319–20).68 Phemius and Medon, whose complementary role at the beginning and end of the Telemachy is to 67 This is the only direct reference to Odysseus yearning for his wife by the narrator (though see 5.209–10). 68 On the logic of her advice, see Felson-Rubin 1994: 4–9.

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narrate events that cause Penelope to grieve, appear impromptu at the close of the mnēsterophonia to be spared as a pair (22.330–80).69 After she recognises Odysseus, Penelope listens to his story of return (23.306–43), just as she had earlier heard Phemius sing the Returns of the Greeks, a song from which Odysseus is excluded (1.328–44). Odysseus’ story at the end of the poem thus completes Phemius’ song at the beginning. Another pairing of characters occurs when Athena then escorts Odysseus and his party to Laertes’ orchard in Book 23, followed by Hermes’ escort of the suitors to Hades in 24. This corresponds to the double embassy announced in Book 1. In both cases, Athena journeys to Ithaca and provides safe escort, of Telemachus and of Odysseus, Telemachus, Eumaeus and Philoetius, followed by Hermes’ journeys to an island of the blessed (Ogygia) and Hades.70 Finally, note the paired warnings of Halitherses and Mentor in the assembly of Book 2 (157–76, 224–41), and Athena’s subsequent appearance as Mentor (398–401), followed by Halitherses’ reminder of both warnings in Book 24 (451–62), and Athena’s subsequent appearance as Mentor (502–3). The prophecy of Tiresias (11.100–37) is key to understanding the Necyia as a mid-turn. It echoes the themes of the prologue and first divine assembly when Tiresias declares that Poseidon hates Odysseus and is hindering his return because he blinded Polyphemus. At the same time, the prophecy looks forward to the poem’s conclusion: if Odysseus’ companions harm the cattle of Helius, Odysseus will return late and alone to find suitors devouring his own biotos; he will, however, take revenge on them.71 These parallels are reinforced when Odysseus repeats to Penelope the further prophecy that he must undertake another journey to propitiate Poseidon (23.268–84~11.121–37). Ring-structures feature so prominently in the Apologue not simply to authenticate Odysseus as story-teller, but also to mark the Necyia as the poem’s mid-turn. Finally, there is a narrative latch. Aristophanes and Aristarchus

69 Eurycleia’s appearances are of some interest here: she assists in the ambush (21.380–7, 22.390–434), as she had earlier helped Telemachus depart from Ithaca (2.345–80). When Medon arrives at Penelope’s chambers with news that the suitors are planning to ambush Telemachus, Eurycleia tries to console the distraught Penelope and instructs her to pray to Athena (4.742–57). After Odysseus spares Medon, Eurycleia arrives at Penelope’s chamber to comfort her with the news that Odysseus has returned (23.1–84). In the first instance, Eurycleia asks Penelope to punish her; in the latter Penelope expresses the desire to do so. These are the only two occasions on which Eurycleia addresses Penelope in the poem. 70 On Ogygia, see Powell 1970: 421; Crane 1988: 33–4, 142; Cook 1992. 71 On the logic of the prophecy, see Peradotto 1990: 63–75.

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notoriously claimed that the Odyssey ends at 23.296.72 To be sure, the thematic sequence I have outlined integrates Odysseus’ adventure story to Penelope, the second Necyia and recognition of Laertes into the narrative.73 But there is an important respect in which the Alexandrians are right, for the Odyssey ends twice, once after Penelope recognises Odysseus, and a second time after Laertes does so. The events following the second Necyia thus constitute the latch that places the story in its wider metaphysical context. This it accomplishes in two ways: most directly, we see Zeus enact the ‘principles of his rule’, programmatically announced in the first divine assembly, by putting an end to needless human suffering.74 When Eupeithes and over half the parents of the suitors set out to take revenge on Odysseus, the scene switches to Olympus, where Athena asks whether Zeus intends war or friendship (24.472–6). The scene is a variant on the previous divine assemblies in which Athena complains of the mistreatment of Odysseus. The scene thus sends a false signal that the story is starting over again. This is reinforced by cultural expectations, for after Odysseus kills the suitors it is to be assumed that their relatives will attempt to retaliate. Zeus, however, responds by suggesting that the suitors’ relatives be made to forget their sorrows. He thereby puts an, or even the, end to the eternal return of death by vendetta, so that an end to cyclical death is also the end of the Odyssey.75 For the second way in which the latch provides metaphysical context, we need to return to the origins of the Odyssey plot. Thus far my analysis only depends on seeing the Odyssey as a highly sophisticated withdrawal and return. In an earlier study, however, I argued that the Odyssey presents itself as the political equivalent of fertility cult, promising material prosperity to a listening community willing to submit to its ideology and holding out the possibility of immortal fame to those who strive to emulate its heroes.76 There my focus was on epiphany and theoxeny: in the present context I note that the theoxeny theme can account for the themes of disguise and punishment that Rose identifies as key elements of his revenge pattern. More 72 On the end of the Odyssey, relevant scholarship includes: Pfeiffer 1968: 175–7; Thornton 1970: ch. 11; Erbse 1972: 166–244; Fenik 1974: 47–53; Moulton 1974; Wender 1978; Goldhill 1991: 18–22; Scodel 1998a; Bierl 2004; Marks 2008: ch. 3; Murnaghan [1987] 2011: 18–23; S. Saïd 2011: 217–22. 73 Laertes’ orchard is structurally significant: 1.193, 11.193, 24.221 etc. 74 Kullmann 1985: 5; cf. 6–7: ‘The religious system of the Odyssey . . . gives something like a metaphysical foundation of the principle of justice.’. . . 75 Wender 1978, esp. 64; Heubeck in Russo et al. 1992: on 24.482–5; Marks 2008: 67–78; Saïd 2011: 221. 76 Cook 2012.

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important in the present context, the significance of the latch becomes more fully evident when viewed in relationship with the Persephone myth. That myth is a double ring-pattern in which the human life-cycle is assimilated to the cycles of nature, so that eternal return becomes ‘a philosophy of renewal and regeneration’. The withdrawal and return of Demeter is literally accompanied by the death and rebirth of nature; while the parallel withdrawal and return of Persephone assimilates her death and rebirth to nature’s cycles. Vegetable life thus provides an analogical model for the mitigated triumph over death realised in cult with the promise of prosperity in this life and eternal blessedness in the next: infinite linear time in the divine sphere is thus made cyclical, resulting in partial mortality; this leads to a parallel conversion of finite linear time in the human sphere that results in partial immortality. The Odyssey likewise integrates the story of Odysseus into nature’s cycles: Odysseus reveals his identity during a New Year festival on the new moon marking the winter solstice on the first day of the first month of the twentieth year after he left for Troy.77 His return thus marks the completion of a ‘Great Year’ when ‘the New Moon would coincide with the New Sun of the winter solstice’.78 As a result the σύνοδος Ὀδυσσέως καὶ Πηνελόπης occurs during the σύνοδος Ἡλίου καὶ Σελήνης.79 Moreover, when Odysseus builds his marriage bed on the stump of a living olive tree, he literally displaces the cycles of nature with the human life-cycles of waking and sleep, conception, birth and death, or in seasonal terms life, death and rebirth.80 This human cycle is embodied in Odysseus, Telemachus and most completely Penelope, who conceives and bears a son on this very bed.81 In this sense, she is the tree and Odysseus her gardener; yet she is equally the tree’s gardener in that she cultivates their marriage and ensures the continued viability of the oikos by preserving the bed’s integrity. The bed is not simply a sēma of identity; it is that identity, invested with a numinous power such that its true nature is a carefully guarded secret. Moreover, Penelope recognises Odysseus by returning, through the narrative of the bed’s fabrication, to their wedding night; and they are 77 On his appearance as epiphanic, see Cook 2012. For the timelines involved see, e.g., Auffarth 1991: 388–420; Austin 1975: ch. 5; Cook 1995: 156–7. 78 Murray 1934: 211. 79 Murray 1934: 212; cf. Auffarth 1991: 417–20. 80 Katz 1991: 177–82; Cook 1995: 154, 161–3; Zeitlin 1995; Saïd 2011: 216–17. 81 This coheres with Homeric agricultural metaphors such as τὸν . . . θρέψαν θεοὶ ἔρνει ἶσον (Od. 14.175; cf. Il. 18.56, 437–8); for the metaphor in classical Athens, cf. Ormand 1999, esp. 20–1, 138–41.

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remarried on that same bed after Athena has rejuvenated her and her husband (18.187–96; 23.153–63).82 Return home is equally a return to the past and with it erasure of the physical effects of over nineteen years spent at Troy and wandering. As important, with his successful reintegration into the household, Odysseus wins immortal kleos as the hero whose late return heralds the return of prosperity to the entire kingdom.83 His remarriage to Penelope is thus a hieros gamos that takes place on a displaced source of biotos. This complex of themes is powerfully echoed in the recognition scene with Laertes.84 Whereas Odysseus incorporates living nature into the heart of his domestic space as the foundation of his marriage bed, Laertes makes nature his domestic space, sleeping on the leaves of his orchard in summer and at the hearth of his farmstead in winter (11.187–96). While Penelope’s preservation of the tree-bed represents the continued well-being of the family, Laertes’ cultivation of the orchard sustains the household literally and symbolically through its production of biotos.85 Whereas the foundation of the marriage (bed) on a living tree displaces nature’s cycles with those of man, and specifically Odysseus’ family, ‘In the primary rituals of planting and tending [Laertes] reasserts the connection between human life and the rhythms of nature.’86 The orchard thus becomes a symbol of generational succession, from father to son. Like the tree-bed, a living orchard representing the social reproduction of the family is both context and instrument of recognition and legitimacy. While the scar is offered to Penelope as proof of Odysseus’ identity, only to be rejected, Odysseus now shows it to Laertes as a proof to be superseded. In both cases, the preferred token is a shared memory upon or within which the house of Arcesius is assimilated to the eternal returns of nature. Odysseus thus proves his identity by recounting the trees and vines Laertes had given him as a young boy. Whereas ‘the gift which a father gives his son is life, and the right to give life in turn to his son’, Odysseus affirms he is Laertes’ son by reminding Laertes that he had once given him biotos.87 Laertes thus recognises his son by returning through narrative to a time when he himself was in his prime. 82 Levaniouk 2011: 66–9. 83 Cook 2012: 53–6; cf. D. Steiner 2009; Levaniouk 2011: ch. 6. 84 On the connection of bed, orchard and Laertids, see Henderson 1997, esp. 97–8, 110–12. 85 Odysseus is reunited with Telemachus on a pig farm, so that his reunion with each member of his family is associated with productive nature. It is, conversely, for their wasteful consumption of Odysseus’ βίοτος that the suitors are destroyed. 86 Falkner [1989] 1995: 43–4. 87 Wender 1978: 61–2; cf. Henderson 1997: 108.

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In a real sense, then, the orchard is not simply a token that reveals Odysseus’ identity, but is that identity as surely as his scar; nor, like the tree-bed, is it merely his own identity, but equally that of Laertes, who laboured over it, and of Telemachus, who will inherit it. And so the scene of reunion in an orchard as a new year begins reintegrates Laertes into the family after his withdrawal, while Demeter restores life to the world and returns to Olympus when Persephone returns to her. The reunion of father and son in a symbol of cyclical nature reconstitutes the family across three generations, representing a complete human life-cycle of youth, maturity and old age that corresponds to the Homeric seasons of ἔαρ, θέρος and χεῖμα in further expression of a ‘philosophy of renewal and regeneration’. This is followed, as it must be, with feasting, in which the reconstituted family is ritually affirmed through commensality.88 Before they eat, however, Athena rejuvenates Laertes, just as she had earlier rejuvenated Odysseus before Penelope recognises him. Afterwards, Athena addresses Laertes as ‘o son of Arcesius’ (24.517: ὦ Ἀρκεισιάδη), the only time he is so called in the poem.89 All three generations of the household are now, miraculously, in the prime of life. This too is echoed in Laertes’ orchard, where the vines are said to bear grapes ‘continuously’ (24.342: διατρύγιος) in clear evocation of the seasonless and ageless environment of Elysium.90 Laertes is even allowed to win his own measure of kleos by making the only kill described in the ensuing altercation with the suitors’ parents. I conclude by elaborating on the claim that the Odyssey’s promise of wealth and prosperity extends to the entire community. It has been a commonplace among social anthropologists since Malinowski and Boas that performing the old stories allows the community to re-enter the primordial past in which the gods still walked among us. It is in this light, I suggest, that we should understand the mimetic nature of Homeric performance, as a religious act of eternal return that makes the ancient heroes and the gods vividly present.91 As a story of withdrawal and return, the Odyssey thus reproduces its own poetics. It does so a second time by making epiphany, and in particular the miraculous reappearance of the long-absent Odysseus, the dramatic

88 As such, it is functionally analogous to the ritual foot-washing in Book 19 affirming the beggar’s status as xeinos, and the love-making of Odysseus and Penelope in Book 23 reaffirming their marriage. See Katz 1991: 143–7; Cook 1995: 155. 89 Anticipated by 24.270; for its immediate function see Scodel 1998a: 13. 90 Heubeck in Russo et al. 1992: on 24.342–4. 91 On Homeric mimesis, see Nagy 1996: ch. 3; Bakker 2005: chs. 4, 9; Cook [1999]. 2009: 127–8; cf. Ford 1992: 6–7, 49–56, 126–30; Seaford 2012: ch. 2.

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climax and central theme of the epic.92 Whereas withdrawal and return is the ultimate ring-structure in the Odyssey, epic performance is the ultimate return narrative in archaic Greece. More broadly, the Odyssey expresses nostalgia for a return to the glories of a bygone age from a degenerate present. This yearning is realised when Athena rejuvenates Penelope, Odysseus and Laertes, thereby restoring them to their relationships before Odysseus left for Troy. The spatial pattern of withdrawal and return is thus assimilated to a temporal pattern in which the progress of time itself is reversed, so that linear time is made cyclical, the same feat accomplished by inscribing the human life-cycle into the cycles of nature. Yet the degenerate present from which the poem longs to return also represents the contemporary world of its audience.93 In his final speech to Athena, Zeus promises that the returned Odysseus will rule ‘forever’ (24.483: αἰεί) and that the people of Ithaca will enjoy ‘abundant wealth and peace’ (486: πλοῦτος δὲ καὶ εἰρήνη ἅλις).94 Zeus’ promise has a clear echo in the prophecy of Tiresias that Odysseus will die ‘overcome by a rich old age, and his people will prosper about him’ (11.136–7 = 23.283–4: γήρᾳ ὕπο λιπαρῷ ἀρημένον· ἀμφὶ δὲ λαοὶ / ὄλβιοι ἔσσονται). So too, the Hymn to Demeter promises that whomever the goddesses love will be ‘enormously prosperous’, for they send the god Wealth to take up residence at his hearth (486: μεγ᾿ ὄλβιος; 489: Πλοῦτος). Return thus takes place on a common spatio-temporal axis in which the return of Odysseus to Ithaca is simultaneously a return of Ithaca to the heroic world, with its promise of renewed prosperity and immortality, achieved through the eternal return of Homer.

92 Cook 2012. 93 On the social setting as post-heroic, see, e.g., Redfield [1983] 2009: 266–9. 94 The word πλοῦτος recurs once in the Odyssey, in the formula ὄλβῳ τε πλούτῳ (14.206).

6 EXEMPLARITY AND NARRATIVE IN THE GREEK TRADITION Douglas Cairns

This chapter investigates the role of what I shall call the ‘principle of alternation’ (the idea that no human life is free of suffering, that the best one can expect is a mixture of good and bad fortune) in (some) ancient Greek narratives. This is not a narratological study in the traditional, formalist sense, but rather reflects my own interests in Greek social and ethical norms and especially in the sociality of emotion in ancient Greek societies. In its broadest terms, its affiliations are with recent approaches, especially those influenced by the cognitive sciences, that see the human species’ storytelling propensities, and particularly the interest in the lives and minds of others that these engage and manifest, as a function of our cognitive and affective evolution. The interest in others’ minds and experiences manifested in (cinematic, literary and other forms of) narrative is not separable from the interest in others’ minds and experiences, and the capacities to have such interest, that we have developed as a result of our evolution as a social species.1 Emotional responses to imagined scenarios, for instance, are as important in life as in literature.2 On one level,

Special thanks to Dr Naoko Yamagata (and members of the Pre-Modern Japanese Studies list) for help with this chapter. I thank also an audience at International Christian University, Tokyo, in June 2013, and in particular Professors Shigenari Kawashima and Tzvetana Kristeva, for their most helpful comments on an oral version.  1 See Carroll 2004; Palmer 2004; Zunshine 2006; Boyd 2009, 141–9 and passim; G. Currie 2010, esp. 93–106, 109–22, 199–216; Leverage et al. 2011; Oatley 2011: 19–21, 24–49 and passim, 2012: 154–62. On humans’ ‘innate primary intersubjectivity’, see Trevarthen 1979, 1998; Dissanayake 2000 passim; Decety and Meltzoff 2011. On mind-reading, see, e.g., Baron-Cohen 1995, 1999; Gärdenfors 2003: 83–109; Nichols and Stich 2003. Specifically on the supposed neural underpinnings (‘mirror neurons’), see Iacoboni 2008, 2011; Rizzolati and Sinigaglia 2008. For doubts about the interpretation of the data in macaques and the investigation of homologous mechanisms in humans, see Dinstein et al. 2008; Jacob 2008; Hickok 2009.   2 G. Currie and Ravenscroft 2002: 197; cf. n. 36 below.

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at least, a written text or formalised oral performance is just one example among many of the ways in which language communicates both thought and emotion. And if texts, narratives and performances are in many ways special, in other ways they bear comparison with all the other physical objects, artefacts and external forms of expression that demonstrate the intersubjectivity and social embeddedness of cognition and affectivity.3 There are interesting questions to be asked about the role of narrative and the forms it takes as a vehicle of traditional thought, as a way of encapsulating, communicating and eliciting emotions, and as a dynamic force in the development of both cultural and individual emotional repertoires. One of these questions concerns the ways that more or less structured patterns of thought and emotion may be related to certain recurrent and structured patterns of narrative. The imaginative sense of others’ experiences, thoughts and emotions that underpins human sociality has a particular role to play in narrative.4 Thus narrative itself has a particular role in developing the audience’s inventory of scripts, paradigm scenarios and the range of affective responses that they evoke. The process can, on the one hand, be one of extending and deepening the reader’s, auditor’s or spectator’s powers of imagination and perspective-taking: it is less, I think, that we run simulations or construct narratives of our own or others’ (real or hypothetical) experiences for the specific purpose of preparing ourselves to face similar situations in our own lives – a very great number of the narrative scenarios that interest us most are remote from most people’s everyday experience – than that the minds of self and other are intricately related in the fundamental cognitive   3 See, e.g., Clark 2008; Colombetti 2009; Smith 2011.   4 For my purposes here, it is enough that this imaginative capacity exists (G. Currie and Ravenscroft 2002). Though perhaps significant in other respects, the controversy between (in particular) simulation-based and narrative-based explanations of the capacity to understand others’ minds is not central to my argument. For the former, see esp. A. Goldman 2006; Stueber 2006, 2012; for the latter, Hutto 2008; Gallagher 2012. Either explanation is enough to show that, in some sense, what we do in understanding a story is similar to what we do in understanding others’ perspectives in general. The implication of Hutto’s and Gallagher’s approaches – that the narratives of everyday social interaction inform and enable the understanding of others’ minds that we deploy and enrich in responding to fictional narratives – is one that those of us whose primary interest is literary narrative may find attractive; though it is simulation theory that has been most popular in cognitive approaches to narrative (e.g., Oatley 2011: 16–18 and passim). I suspect, however, that the three main versions of Theory of Mind – ‘theory theory’, simulation theory and narrative theory – have more in common than their practitioners sometimes suggest (cf. G. Currie and Ravenscroft 2002: 49–70, on ‘theory theory’ and simulation; cf. the exchange between Stueber 2012 and Hutto 2012 on simulation versus narrative; Nichols and Stich 2003: 100–48 on the weaknesses of monolithic theories).

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and emotional processes that make us what we are; engaging with others’ minds and others’ lives in imagination, and perhaps especially in the kinds of imagination possible when we enter into the worlds of narrative fiction, builds capacity.5 But the same process can also, at the same time, be a matter of codification and normalisation: stories can also recur to typical patterns, serving to crystallise the paradigmatic cases and the norms by which audiences respond emotionally to those cases. My starting point is the encounter between Achilles and Priam in Iliad 24, and especially Achilles’ remarks on the jars of Zeus (525ff.): “ὡς γὰρ ἐπεκλώσαντο θεοὶ δειλοῖσι βροτοῖσι 525 ζώειν ἀχνυμένοις· αὐτοὶ δέ τ’ ἀκηδέες εἰσί. δοιοὶ γάρ τε πίθοι κατακείαται ἐν Διὸς οὔδει δώρων οἷα δίδωσι κακῶν, ἕτερος δὲ ἑάων· ᾧ μέν κ’ ἀμμίξας δώῃ Ζεὺς τερπικέραυνος, ἄλλοτε μέν τε κακῷ ὅ γε κύρεται, ἄλλοτε δ’ ἐσθλῷ· 530 ᾧ δέ κε τῶν λυγρῶν δώῃ, λωβητὸν ἔθηκε, καί ἑ κακὴ βούβρωστις ἐπὶ χθόνα δῖαν ἐλαύνει, φοιτᾷ δ’ οὔτε θεοῖσι τετιμένος οὔτε βροτοῖσιν. ὣς μὲν καὶ Πηλῆϊ θεοὶ δόσαν ἀγλαὰ δῶρα ἐκ γενετῆς” (κτλ.) 535 ‘For thus have the gods spun the thread for wretched mortals, that they should live in pain; but they themselves are without care. For there are two jars placed on the floor of Zeus of gifts that he gives, the one of ills, the other of blessings. If Zeus who delights in the thunderbolt gives a man a mixed lot, that man meets now with evil, now with good; but if he gives only from the evils, he ruins a man, and evil hunger drives him over the divine earth, and he wanders honoured by neither gods nor mortals. Just so the gods gave splendid gifts to Peleus from birth.’ This is a fundamental formulation of a characteristic archaic Greek attitude towards the nature and possibility of happiness. Its broad  5 Pace Pinker 1997: 543: ‘fictional narratives supply us with a mental catalogue of the fatal conundrums we might face someday and the outcomes of strategies we could deploy in them’; see rather Tooby and Cosmides [2001] 2010; Carroll 2006; Zunshine 2006; Boyd 2009, esp. 188–208; Dutton 2009: 109–26; Smith 2011, esp. 109–11; Oatley 2011: 32–3, 37–8, 45, 55–79, 100–1, 105–6, 108–32 and esp. 156–75 (with reference to empirical studies in support of the notion that fiction builds capacity in other-understanding and empathy; cf. Oatley 2012, esp. 121–6, 159–62, 184–8).

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implications are well known: suffering is inherent in the human condition, which is defined by antithesis with the divine; good fortune is not permanent, but inevitably alternates with its opposite.6 Achilles’ formulation is perhaps typically Greek or typically ‘archaic’, but it is clearly not unique. The inevitability of suffering (and its often arbitrary character) are prominent topics in Near Eastern sources such as the Babylonian Theodicy and Poem of the Righteous Sufferer or the Old Testament Book of Job.7 We have a reasonably close analogue to Achilles’ speech in the ale-wife’s speech of consolation in the Old Babylonian Version of Gilgamesh X.iii:8 ‘Gilgamesh, where do you roam? You will not find the eternal life you seek. When the gods created mankind They appointed death for mankind, Kept eternal life in their own hands. So, Gilgamesh, let your stomach be full, Day and night enjoy yourself in every way, Every day arrange for pleasures. Day and night, dance and play, Wear fresh clothes. Keep your head washed, bathe in water, Appreciate the child who holds your hand, Let your wife enjoy herself in your lap. This is the work [ ] [ ] That which the living [ ].’ Death is the gods’ dispensation for human beings, and so suffering is an inevitable element in a finite existence, an aspect of the human condition that distinguishes men from gods.9   6 A full sample of poetic passages, from Homer to Euripides, can be found in Krause 1976; see her index, 298–304; discussion 43–289. See esp. 50–2 on Il. 24.525ff. as the ‘Vergleichsbasis für alle späteren Entwicklungen’ (p. 50). For similar notions in Homer, cf. e.g. Od. 6.188–9, 16.211–12.  7 Poem of the Righteous Sufferer in Lambert 1960: 21–62 (cf. ANET3 438–40, where it is called A Dialogue about Human Misery); Babylonian Theodicy, Lambert 1960: 63–91. For the divine as the source of alternation in human fortunes and the need for human endurance, cf. Eccl. 7: 13–14, Job 5: 17–18.  8 ANET3 p. 90; trans. by Dalley 1989: 150. Cf. the consolation offered by Ut-napishtim in Gilgamesh SBV X.vi, ANET3 92–3, Dalley 1989: 107–8.  9 In Atrahasis I (Dalley 1989: 9–15) mankind is created to free gods from toil. Cf., e.g., Gen. 3: 17–19, where toil is God’s punishment of Adam. Cf. also M. L. West 1997: 120.

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exemplarity and narrative in the greek tradition 107 More specifically, the Greeks are far from alone either in their reflections on the mutability of fortune and the transience of happiness or in making art out of such reflections. Thoughts of the instability of fortune, the shortness of life and the evanescence of happiness are encapsulated in many cultures’ repertoires of artistic and literary forms, not just in the Near Eastern traditions that may or may not be a proximate source of influence on early Greek poetry, but more widely. In Japan, for example, such thoughts play a role in the intense focus on the passing of the seasons that finds expression in the celebration of both spring blossoms and autumn leaves. These thoughts similarly find expression in the visual arts. Wabi and sabi are Japanese terms for an indefinable complex of philosophical and aesthetic ideals centred on the acceptance of impermanence (mujō) and the beauty of imperfection, incompleteness and irregularity. Wabi (poverty/simplicity), sabi (solitude) and aware (pathos/sensitivity) are (together with yūgen, depth/mystery) the four moods associated with haiku, while mono no aware, ‘the pathos of things’, is a sense of the exquisiteness and poignancy of the changing seasons and the subtleties of human existence, said to inform not only short poems, but also longer narratives from the eleventh-century Tale of Genji to the films of Ozu Yasujiro.10 One such narrative, Heike monogatari (The Tale of the Heike, dating from the thirteenth–fourteenth centuries), begins with what the eighteenthcentury scholar and poet Motoori Norinaga identified as a classic example of mono no aware: The sound of the Gion Shōja bells echoes the impermanence of all things; the color of the sāla flowers reveals the truth that the prosperous must decline. The proud do not endure, they are like a dream on a spring night; the mighty fall at last, they are as dust before the wind.11 10 For the terms, see Colombetti 2009: 19. For mono no aware, in particular, see Motoori Norinaga,‘On mono no aware’, in Marra 2007: 184–5: Now, with regard to the difference between knowing mono no aware and not knowing it, I would say that to know mono no aware is to be stirred by the view of the wonderful cherry blossoms, or of the bright moon while facing it. One’s feelings are stirred up because he understands, deep in his heart, the moving power of the moon and the blossoms. The heart that is ignorant of this moving power will never be stirred, no matter how wonderful the blossoms are and how clear the moon is in front of him. In other words, this is what I mean by the phrase, ‘not knowing mono no aware’.

The concept of mono no aware was the focus of a splendid and extensive exhibition at the Suntory Museum of Art, Tokyo, 17 April–16 June 2013: see Ishida et al. 2013. 11 Heike monogatari 1.1 = McCullough 1988: 23.

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According to Helen Craig McCullough, ‘it is the melancholy preoccupation with transitoriness, or “awareness of mutability” (mujōkan) that gives Heike monogatari its distinctive tone’.12 Despite what are in some ways rather striking similarities, my claim is not that these Japanese notions, and the affective attitudes with which they are associated, are exactly or even very like the principle of alternation in Greek. But their labelling, their currency and their expression in language, symbol and art (both verbal and visual) represent a comparable phenomenon, namely the way that the condensation of such complexes of thought and feeling in typical and traditional forms makes a particular ethical or emotional perspective tangible, tractable and transferable.13 These recurrent forms capture important aspects of a culture’s emotional and normative repertoire in a way that allows them to be reconstituted and applied in the mind of each recipient or audience member. The encapsulation of traditional norms, with their associated ways of feeling, in a traditional artistic form encourages a symbiotic replication both of the form and of the response that it evokes; it helps define the repertoire of both artists and audience. A particularly striking example of the systematisation of the ­relations between artistic form, emotional expression and the emotional response of the audience is apparent in the classical Indian performance tradition’s concept of rasa.14 The stylised performance of specific gestures and movements executes the emotional scripts embodied in the work of art and elicits the rasa (roughly ‘relish’; more literally something like ‘juice’) that is the spectator’s emotional pleasure in the performance. The relation between performed emotion (sthayi bhava) and rasa is highly codified. As Richard Schechner explains: In the rasic system, there are ‘artistically performed emotions’ which comprise a distinct kind of behavior (different, perhaps for each performance genre). These performed emotions are separate from the ‘feelings’ – the interior, subjective experience 12 McCullough 1988: 473. On the reiteration of this central theme throughout the narrative, the ways in which it affects the structure of the narrative itself, the norms that it articulates and the emotions that it is designed to evoke, cf. McCullough 1988: 456–7, 463–4, 467–75; cf. Kawashima 2000: 5 (and passim on similarities and differences between Heike and the Iliad in their attitudes to fate and death). The similarity between the expression of mujōkan in the Heike prologue and Achilles’ parable of the jars is noted by Mori 1997: 79–80. See also Yamagata 1993: 7–9, 2011: 27 on mutability in Homer and Heike. On the paradox of a transcendent epic that memorialises impermanence, cf. Mori 1997: 100–1; Bialock 2007: 281. 13 See further Colombetti 2009. 14 On rasa theory, see Schechner 2001; S. L. Schwartz 2004; Oatley 2011: 120–4, 2012: 34–7, 46–7, 69–72; cf. Dutton 2009: 122.

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exemplarity and narrative in the greek tradition 109 of any given performer during a particular performance. There is no necessary and ineluctable chain linking these ‘performed emotions’ with the ‘emotions of everyday life.’ In the rasic system, the emotions in the arts, not in ordinary life are knowable, manageable, and transmittable in roughly the same way that the flavors and presentation of a meal are manageable by following recipes and the conventions of presenting the meal.15 Greek performance, poetic and narrative traditions do not have anything quite like this; but the general point about the relation between the scripts and scenarios of everyday emotion, the crystallisation of such scripts in narrative and performance, and the eliciting of emotional responses in an audience holds good. Despite all the differences in detail, Aristotle’s Poetics (to which we shall return below) works with a similar relation between dramatic form, the emotional scripts implicit in that form, and the pleasurable emotional reactions of the audience.16 I guess that if we were to look for ancient Greek analogues to the Japanese notions of impermanence discussed above we should probably think first of gnōmai, such as these from the concluding lines of Pindar’s eighth Pythian (lines 88–97):17 ὁ δὲ καλόν τι νέον λαχών ἁβρότατος ἔπι μεγάλας ἐξ ἐλπίδος πέταται 90 ὑποπτέροις ἀνορέαις, ἔχων κρέσσονα πλούτου μέριμναν. ἐν δ’ ὀλίγῳ βροτῶν τὸ τερπνὸν αὔξεται· οὕτω δὲ καὶ πίτνει χαμαί, ἀποτρόπῳ γνώμᾳ σεσεισμένον. ἐπάμεροι· τί δέ τις; τί δ’ οὔ τις; σκιᾶς ὄναρ 95 ἄνθρωπος. ἀλλ’ ὅταν αἴγλα διόσδοτος ἔλθῃ, λαμπρὸν φέγγος ἔπεστιν ἀνδρῶν καὶ μείλιχος αἰών. But he who has gained some fine new thing in his great luxury flies beyond hope on the wings of his manliness, with ambition 15 Schechner 2001: 32; cf. Oatley 2012: 34–5, esp. 34: ‘Rasas are like the emotions of everyday life, but unlike them in that they are felt in fiction in a way that can make them more understandable.’ See also S. L. Schwartz 2004: 15–16, 19, 23. 16 For a comparison of the Greek (esp. Aristotelian) and Indian traditions in this respect, see Munteanu 2012: 29–36. 17 On gnōmai in Greek poetry, see Ahrens 1937; on particular poets, see Bischoff 1938; Cocuzza 1975; Lardinois 1997, 2000; Stenger 2004; and cf. Huart 1973 on Thucydides; Gould 1989: 81–2 on Herodotus.

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that is greater than wealth. But the pleasure of mortals increases but briefly, and in the same way falls to the ground, shaken by adverse thought. Creatures of a day. What is someone? What is no one? Man is the dream of a shadow. But when god-given splendour comes, a shining light is on men, and sweet is their existence. Here again, there are plenty of parallels in other traditions. M. L. West cites several analogues in west Asiatic sources for Pindar’s image of man’s ephemerality,18 as he does for Mimnermus’ description of life as ‘as short as a dream’.19 For the impermanence of human creations (as reflected in Simonides 581 PMG = 262 Poltera), he cites BWL (= Lambert 1960) 109.9–11 (‘Counsels of a Pessimist’): [Whatever] the people create does not survive for ever; [ma]nkind and its creations alike come to an end. [But do y]ou offer prayers to the god.20 Similarly, there are Near Eastern analogues for the famous gnōmē on the generations of men and leaves at Il. 6.146–9.21 Here, however, there are more remote parallels, not just in the Sanskrit sources that perhaps might be argued to reflect indirect transmission or a common Indo-European origin,22 but also in unrelated traditions.23 Since the latter are clear evidence of analogy rather than homology, the pos18 M. L. West 1997: 541, citing Ps. 144: 3–4; Job 7: 17–8: 9 (see esp. 8: 9: ‘for we were born only yesterday and know nothing, | and our days on earth are but a shadow’); BWL (Lambert 1960) 282. 19 Mimnermus 5.4 West, with parallels from second-millennium Egyptian writings in M. L. West 1997: 507. 20 M. L. West 1997: 534; cf., e.g., Ut-napistim on impermanence in Gilgamesh X.vi, ANET3 pp. 92–3, Dalley 1989: 108–9. 21 M. L. West 1997: 365, comparing Ps. 103: 15–16, 90: 5–6; Isa. 40: 6–7; Job 14: 2. The close parallel at Ecclus. 14: 18 (‘As of the green leaves on a thick tree, some fall, and some grow; so is the generation of flesh and blood, one cometh to an end, and another is born’) is, according to West, ibid. n. 37, ‘influenced by the Iliad passage’. 22 E.g. Katha Upanishad 1 (trans. Mascaró 1965: 55): ‘Remember how the men of old passed away, and how those days to come will also pass away: a mortal ripens like corn, and like corn is born again.’ For the principle of alternation more generally in Indian classical literature, cf. Rigveda 10.117.5 (trans. Doniger 1981: 69): ‘Let the stronger man give to the man whose need is greater; let him gaze upon the lengthening path. For riches roll like the wheels of a chariot, turning from one to another.’ For the wheel as an image of alternation in Greek, cf. Hdt. 1.207.2, with Krause 1976: 210 (and cf. below). For the focus on wealth, cf., e.g., Thgn. 157–8. 23 E.g. Heike monogatari 1.6 (McCullough 1988: 33), cited by Yamagata 1993: 8: ‘Since both are grasses | of the field, how may either | be spared by autumn – | the young shoot blossoming forth | and the herb fading from view?’

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sibility of analogous development is one that must always be borne in mind, even in the case of related cultures and traditions. But gnōmai, aphorisms, proverbs and other such speech-genres are more than just atomistic nuggets of thought; it is typical, in ancient Greece as elsewhere, for them to be embedded in contexts in which their emblematic significance is more widely applied, especially by being associated with traditional tales that exemplify their point.24 There is an intimate link (all over the world) between the proverb, the parable and the fable.25 But these are just instances of the way that aphoristic formulations readily transform themselves into narrative. The general use of narrative to illustrate traditional wisdom must, I think, be universal: constructing tales of the experiences and exploits of individuals is one of the chief ways that we, as social creatures, make sense of our place in a world of social relations. Let us return to Iliad 24. Achilles’ parable of the jars illustrates a distinctive world-view, one that rests on the gulf between human and god and emphasises the place of human beings in a universe that cannot be bent to their will and that imposes limits on human aspiration. A number of central features of archaic thought are implicit in or derive from this outlook – that continuing good fortune may be ominous, that human fortunes can change in the space of a day, that hopes for the future are often illusionary, etc. Second, the pessimistic premises have a clear practical point, which in this case is consolatory. Given that this is how the world is, there is no point in incessant lamentation (549–51).26 This persuasive, rhetorical use of the parable of the jars is linked to its exemplary force: the image of the jars specifies conditions that apply to all, but these general conditions are emphasised by paradigmatic application. Priam wants to emphasise the similarity but also the difference between himself and Peleus; Achilles uses his knowledge of his own fate to restate the similarity and present his own father as an exemplum; he uses the further exemplum of Niobe (599–620) to underline the central point, that others suffer as we do, yet persevere, as we must. What Achilles tells Priam, using the exempla of Peleus, Niobe and Priam himself, is simultaneously what the stories of both Priam and Achilles tell us. The exemplary force of the narrative is 24 Cf. Turner 1996: 5–7; Geary 2011: 182–8. As Gould observes (1989: 81), a gnōmē ‘is what Walter Benjamin [1973: 108] calls “an ideogram of a story” ’. 25 Geary 2011: 179–96. 26 ‘ἄνσχεο, μὴ δ’ ἀλίαστον ὀδύρεο σὸν κατὰ θυμόν· | οὐ γάρ τι πρήξεις ἀκαχήμενος υἷος ἑῆος, | οὐδέ μιν ἀνστήσεις, πρὶν καὶ κακὸν ἄλλο πάθῃσθα’ (‘Bear up, and do not lament incessantly in your thymos. You will not achieve anything by grieving for your son, nor will you bring him back to life, before some other evil befalls you’). Cf. the Niobe paradigm, 599–620.

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highlighted by the use of the exemplary mode in the narrative. The Iliad employs this mode at some of its most crucial junctures; such passages underline the exemplary force of the poem itself.27 At this crucial point, looking back on the two narrative strands (‘Troy’ and ‘Achilles’) that have now converged, the Iliad is saying something important about its own aesthetics – about its reception, its ethos and its plot. The effect of the encounter on its participants, and in particular the effect of Achilles’ consolation on his internal audience, steers the response of the external audience. This in turn is a matter of the poem’s ethos: it is a poem in which the great deeds of heroes (among which are counted both Priam’s journey to ransom Hector’s body and Achilles’ acceptance of his appeal) are seen against a background of shared loss, vicissitude and fallibility. And these are fundamental principles of the poem’s plot: the plan of Zeus is fulfilled, but the plans of Agamemnon, Achilles, Patroclus and Hector – to name but a few – are not. In this way, a typical Greek script for emotion (the emotion of pity) becomes an aspect of plot construction and audience response.28 The particular circumstances in which this script is enacted (in which a man returns his worst enemy’s body for burial), the narrative salience of the context, the emotional power of the episode, and the exemplary force both of the passage itself and of the poem that this passage brings to a close are of inestimable significance in terms of the contribution that this model makes in developing and extending the imaginative scope of the ancient Greek emotional repertoire.29 The principle of alternation in general specifies no particular cause of misfortune: Priam and Peleus serve as examples of human beings whose good fortune is undercut by the suffering they experience at the end of their lives. But the development of the principle in the plot of the poem itself emphasises the influence of human fallibility (and especially of the phenomenon called atē).30 The importance of this notion is emphasised by the fact that atē itself becomes a personified agent in 27 See above all Howie [1995] 2012. For a definition of exemplarity, as part of a splendid account of its importance in Roman culture, see Roller 2004. 28 For shared vulnerability to misfortune as a typical condition for pity in traditional Greek thought, cf. B. 5.155–62 (esp. 160–2 and cf. 89–92); S. Aj. 121–6, Phil. 501–6, OC 566–8; E. Hec. 282–7; Hdt. 1.86.6, 7.46.2; cf. Pelling 2005a: 289, 291–2 on Plutarch. 29 This is one reason why, for example, discussion of the issue of non-burial in Sophocles’ Antigone cannot be restricted to consideration of the treatment of traitors in fifth-century Athens. As George Steiner writes (1984: 242), ‘The more one experiences ancient Greek literature and civilization, the more insistent the suggestion that Hellas is rooted in the twenty-fourth Book of the Iliad.’ 30 See Cairns 2012.

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two paranarratives placed at crucial stages in the development of the plot.31 These paranarratives present in exemplary form elements of gnomic wisdom that illustrate a crucial aspect of the poem’s implicit theory of action. That implicit theory of action is central both to the development of the plot and to an audience’s affective and evaluative responses to the plot. The pattern by which gnomic wisdom on the principle of alternation is used to generalise a more specific actionsequence is a common one. Solon’s Musenelegie (13 W), for example, deals mainly with the ruin (atē) that is the consequence of the hybris prevalent in those who pursue wealth and prosperity by improper means; but it also features prominently (at lines 63–70) a series of gnōmai on the apparently arbitrary alternation of good and bad fortune. Similarly, the theme of atē, as both delusion and disaster, runs through Sophocles’ Antigone,32 the final verdict, accepted by all, being that Creon is very much the agent of his own misfortune; he has, as the Chorus put it, ‘erred his own atē, no one else’s’ (1259–60).33 Yet the Messenger who announces the deaths of Antigone and Haemon begins his speech by presenting Creon as a paradigm of the mutability of fortune (1155–71). In neither Solon nor Sophocles are the two perspectives assimilated into a single harmonious explanation. Human error or transgression and the mutability of fortune differ, by definition, as explanations of human suffering. Yet in neither place is the moralising on alternation merely juxtaposed with the explanation in terms of error or transgression; we have not the ‘peaceful coexistence’ of logically incompatible notions,34 but general and specific versions of a similar pattern, each of which presents a perspective on human beings’ failure to secure their own happiness by their actions and intentions. We should think less of separate and competing explanations than of a dynamic model in which a general, focal conception is capable of specification in variety of different ways.35 We can see 31 Il. 9.502–14, 19.85–136. On these and other paranarratives, see Alden 2000. 32 See Cairns 2013b. 33 Cf. Ant. 1261–2, 1265, 1269 (Creon); 1304–5, 1312–13 (Eurydice, as reported by the Messenger). 34 Versnel 2011: 212, 231. 35 These are topics which must be pursued in detail elsewhere. In brief, however, I should see the phenomena that Versnel 2011: 151–237 (201–6 specifically on Sol. 13 West) presents as logically incompatible much more in terms of a general schema with particular options, each related to but not necessarily entailing the others (cf. Eidinow 2011: 9–10, 66–75). Thus, while I appreciate in principle the difference between notions such as alternation, fate, divine phthonos and divine punishment, I should not (unlike Versnel; cf. in some respects Hau 2007 passim, e.g., 35, 89–90, 112, 115, 141, 244) wish to see a sharp disjunction between them in practice. If, for example, the principle of alternation is a statement of ‘the way things are’, then it is a very short (yet still not a necessary) step to explain that state

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this in terms of there being, as patterns of human action, a variety of related scripts of more or less specific types; this variety at the level of the script equates to a variety of interrelated narrative patterns at the level of the plot, and to a variety of affective and evaluative responses in an audience.36 What Iliad 24 does, then, is to set human limitations and the inevitability of reversal in a universal context of shared humanity, making the misfortunes that we bring on ourselves part of a wider pattern in which misfortune (of whatever kind) is inevitable. The poem’s effect on its audience is a function of a type of plot whose overall narrative principles also embody the culture’s shared assumptions about (1) the nature of human agency, (2) the norms of human behaviour and (3) the place of humans in a world of forces beyond their control. These assumptions are not latent, but explicitly activated in salient passages in which gnomic wisdom is presented in exemplary form. Archaic poetry is also suffused with reflections of the principle of alternation. There are too many examples to discuss.37 I make only two general points. First, there is always an application. In epinician poetry, for example, the purpose of what Bundy calls ‘vicissitude foil’ is typically positive – the fragility of human happiness, its inevitable alternation with its opposite, provides an argument for appreciating the temporary felicity of agonistic achievement all the more intensely.38 Epinician exploits what is only a logical possibility in Iliad 24,39 that suffering might give way to bliss.40 One poem that does this extensively

(footnote 35 continued) of affairs in terms of something like ‘fate’. If the inevitability of suffering defines man vis-à-vis god, then it is possible (but not obligatory) to see unmixed happiness as something that gods jealously keep to themselves; and since gods are analytically superior to mortals, their felicity can (but need not) be seen as an entitlement which justifies their resentment. These categories are not discrete but potentially overlapping as the need arises; though the specific conceptions are not reducible, without remainder, to a single general notion, there is a logic by which they may be related. 36 On actions, scripts, plots and narratives, see Oatley 2012: 45–7, esp. 46: ‘Scripts are not just cognitive components of understanding. They can also be sequences that are deeply rooted in a society’s beliefs and values.’ On the emotional aspects of this, cf. Boyd 2009: 107–8, 138–41. For another approach to the interrelation of emotion-scripts and narratives, see Snaevarr 2010. 37 See Krause 1976: 61–151. 38 Bundy [1962] 1986, esp. 47–53, 74–5. See the passage from P. 8 quoted above and cf., e.g., P. 7.20–1. For further discussion and examples of the theme of vicissitude in Pindar, cf. Bischoff 1938: 125–65; Kirkwood 1975, esp. 63–74; Krause 1976: 91–138 (cf. 138–51 on Bacchylides); Maravela 2011. 39 So, rightly, Krause 1976: 51. 40 See, e.g., I. 7.37–9: ἔτλαν δὲ πένθος οὐ φατόν· ἀλλὰ νῦν μοι | Γαιάοχος εὐδίαν ὄπασσεν | ἐκ χειμῶνος (‘I endured sorrow beyond words; but now the god that holds the earth has granted me calm after the storm’).

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is Olympian 2, in which the regular epinician sequence of hēsychia as recompense for ponos blends with patterns of positive alternation in the fortunes of mythological dynasties and in the fate of the soul after death.41 The general point is substantiated by the repeated use of exemplary mythological figures. At every stage, gnōmai about the possibility of positive alternation are illustrated by means of concrete examples: the daughters of Cadmus, the Labdacids and (on the island of the blessed) Peleus, Cadmus and Achilles. In each case, only the minimum of narrative detail is given; the rest is supplied in the minds of the audience. Two further examples, both in odes for Hieron of Syracuse, illustrate the interactive quality of the exemplary style and its explicit debt to the Iliad. In Pythian 3, Achilles’ parable of the jars of Zeus is reduced to a bare gnōme: ἓν παρ’ ἐσλὸν πήματα σύνδυο δαίονται βροτοῖς ἀθάνατοι (‘for every good thing the immortals distribute two pains to mortals’, 81–2).42 This is explicitly presented as a truth that can be applied to Hieron’s situation (80–1, 84–6), before it is illustrated (in 86–103) by the narrative exempla of Cadmus (as in Olympian 2) and Peleus (as in Olympian 2 and Iliad 24). But the ode as a whole is punctuated by gnōmai on the instability of fortune, and humans’ inability to cope with good fortune is exemplified by the myths of Asclepius and Coronis earlier in the poem. Gnōmai, exempla and extended exemplary narrative all underline the central rhetorical point – that illness may impair Hieron’s happiness, but his prosperity nonetheless endures, because he knows how to deal with it. The narrative of Heracles’ encounter with Meleager in Hades in Bacchylides’ fifth ode draws on several Homeric models, but one of them is certainly the meeting of Achilles and Priam in Iliad 24.43 As in the Iliad, the lesson drawn from the inevitability of suffering, even for the greatest, is endurance rather than resignation, and the reactions of the characters (the tears of Meleager that are answered by the tears 41 Krause 1976: 101–6 (102 on ponos and hēsychia); Lloyd-Jones [1985] 1990; Nisetich 1988 (esp. 4–5 on ponos and hēsychia); Theunissen 2002: 698–783; Adorjáni 2011: 172–96. On ponos and hēsychia in epinician more generally, see, e.g., Slater 1981; Dickie 1984. 42 I think the scholia (Σ P. 3.141a–b, ii. 81 Drachmann; cf. Σ A Il. 24.528) are right about the allusion to the parable of the jars, but it would not affect my general point if we followed B. Currie in believing that there is none (2005: 390–2). 43 See B. 5.162–3: ‘ἀλλ’ οὐ γάρ τίς ἐστιν | πρᾶξις τάδε μυρομένοις . . .’ (‘But since there is no purpose in bewailing these things . . .’) and cf. Il. 24.524 (οὐ γάρ τις πρῆξις πέλεται κρυεροῖο γόοιο), 550 (οὐ γάρ τι πρήξεις ἀκαχήμενος υἷος ἑῆος). Cf. also B. 5.84–5 (θάμβησεν δ’ ἄναξ | Ἀμφιτρυωνιάδας) with Il. 24.483–4 (ὣς Ἀχιλεὺς θάμβησεν ἰδὼν Πρίαμον θεοειδέα· | θάμβησαν δὲ καὶ ἄλλοι). See further Cairns 2010: 46, 88–9, 231, 241; on the theme of alternation in this ode and in B. 3 (also for Hieron), cf. Cairns 2011.

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of Heracles) guide those of the audience, with the result that, as the career of Meleager embodies a truth for Heracles, so the presentation of both great heroes serves an exemplary function for the audience. But though the narrative is extensive, it is also truncated. Heracles proposes a marriage with Meleager’s sister, Deianira, and the audience see that the human limitations that apply to Meleager will be exemplified by Heracles too. The principle of alternation is not the only motif from which tragic plots are fashioned, but it is a central aspect of several, and the norms with which it belongs are reflected more peripherally in many more.44 This is not a point that needs to be laboured, and there is no time either for exhaustive survey or for detailed analysis of even the best examples. But it is worth noting that in these ‘best examples’ – for instance, Sophocles’ Ajax or Oedipus Tyrannus – (1) the development of the theme of alternation involves the characteristic whole-life perspective on the career of a single heroic figure; (2) the exemplary nature of the central character’s change of fortune as a manifestation of the principle of alternation is explicitly highlighted; (3) the limits on what is possible for human beings are defined, as an explicit aspect of the plot’s exemplary force, by what is possible for gods; and (4) the responses of internal witnesses not only point the moral in terms of alternation but also explicitly guide the emotional responses of an external audience. This is by no means the only kind of tragic plot, and the plots of even these two Sophoclean plays are in some ways very different. In Ajax, for example, the exemplarity of Ajax’s change of fortune is outlined by Athena in the prologue (118–33); she and Odysseus respond to the same phenomena, but exhibit very different evaluations and emotions. The notion of alternation then underpins both the false hope that Ajax can be saved if he survives the current day and the determination of Ajax himself to abandon a world of change and vicissitude, until (paradoxically) his fortunes take a turn for the better when his enemy, Odysseus, behaves like a friend. In OT, on the other hand, it is after the prodigious scale of Oedipus’ misfortunes becomes clear that the Chorus present him as a paradigm of the vulnerability of all mortals (1186–96).45 A central focus on a profound change of 44 See Krause 1976: 151–285; Cairns 2006, 2013b, 2013c; Easterling 2013; Lloyd 2013. Among primary sources, and apart from those discussed in the text, cf. e.g. A. Ag. 1327–9; S. Tr. 1–3, 29–30, 129–31, 296–302, 943–6, OC 394, 607–20, fr. 871 R; E. Med. 1224–30, Hipp. 1105–10, Supp. 331, Oedipus frr. 92, 97 Austin = 549, 554 Kannicht. 45 Cf. Ant. 1155–71 (with Simonides 521 PMG = 244 Poltera; cf. Swift 2010, on alternation in Simonidean laments), 1347–53, picking up a theme of the play’s central

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fortune and the presentation of such a change in explicitly exemplary terms does not dictate a single type of plot-structure. But still the principle of alternation is a crucial factor in the presentation of the story in each individual case. And this is a salient enough feature of tragic plots to find its way into Aristotle’s Poetics. The details are well known: in one of Aristotle’s two paradigms of the best type of plot (Poetics 13),46 the audience is emotionally affected by a character’s change from good fortune to bad; this emotional reaction relies on the ability to refer what happens to the character to what might happen to oneself; the character should contribute to his own misfortune but not entirely deserve it; and while the character should therefore be in some respects like us, the typical examples are provided by a few familiar (heroic) figures. Aristotle’s preference for this classic plot type in the Poetics is matched by the serious consideration that he gives its archaic ethical underpinnings in the Ethics.47 It is true, at least in a sense, that one should count no man happy until he is dead;48 eudaimonia is a quality of a whole life, and lives as wholes are vulnerable to the kinds of vicissitude that feature in the representations of the downfall of exemplary figures from the heroic past in epic and tragedy. In conceding something to traditional wisdom, Aristotle tellingly makes his point by means of a traditional exemplum – Priam (EN 1100a4–9, 1101a6–13). In the Poetics Aristotle goes beyond the archaic principle of alternation by omitting its theological dimension; he also insists on the individual’s contribution to his or her own undeserved suffering, a prominent and recurrent, but not an essential form of the traditional complex. Aristotle’s template fits only a few tragedies; but this is in itself interesting. In eschewing a purely descriptive model, Aristotle obviously has his own agenda, but this is an agenda that in both the Ethics and the Poetics makes room for central concepts of archaic Greek thought. The plot-type that he finds instantiated in the OT is not typical, but it is prototypical, at least in the respects that I have outlined and in so far as these are and fundamentally important second stasimon (582–625). The Ant. resembles the OT in so far as the moral of mutability is drawn summatively in the play’s closing stages, but in other ways their plots are very different, especially in the Ant.’s dual focus on the fates of Antigone and Creon. Though these are very closely interlinked, if the principle of alternation is applicable to both, its ethical and religious implications will differ in each case. See further Cairns 2013b. 46 On the relation between Po. 13 and 14 on the best kind(s) of plot, see most recently Heath forthcoming. 47 See esp. EN 1100a4–11, 1101a6–13. 48 As in Sim. 521 PMG = 244 Poltera; A. Ag. 928–9 (with Fraenkel 1950: ii. 420 ad loc.); E. Andr. 100–2, Hcld. 865–6 (with Fränkel 1946: 135), Tro. 509–10; Hdt. 1.32.7.

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i­ mportant culturally, to the tragedians (especially to Sophocles) and to Aristotle.49 Aristotle’s focus on plots that involve the representation of human agency, the fallibility of human choice, a resulting change in fortune and the arousal of sympathetic but self-referential emotions in an audience, together with his insistence that these emotions are best aroused by drawing on the best-known examples from a limited corpus of traditional exemplary figures, fastens on to a prominent cultural model, in both aesthetic and ethico-emotional terms. We could pursue this model in other genres, for example in historiography. The abundance of material in that area is well demonstrated by the splendid but still unpublished dissertation of Lisa Hau, which provides an exhaustive collection of evidence and thorough analysis of the many variations on the theme of mutability from Herodotus to Diodorus Siculus.50 Moralising on the mutability of fortune, Hau argues, is an important narrative theme from the beginning of historiography, but becomes a standard feature of the genre especially in the fourth century. She concludes: ‘All the extant historiographies discussed have as one of their core didactic messages the fact that human life is unstable and that one should not be overconfident about the future. They all depict such overconfidence as leading to disaster.’51 In Herodotus, for example, the principle of alternation operates at the individual level, but also at that of the rise and fall of great powers. 52 Both are linked in the reflections of 1.5.4,53 where Herodotus justifies his intention of treating the affairs of both great and small communities alike (1.5.3, ὁμοίως μικρὰ καὶ μεγάλα ἄστεα ἀνθρώπων ἐπεξιών) by observing: τὰ γὰρ τὸ πάλαι μεγάλα ἦν, τὰ πολλὰ αὐτῶν σμικρὰ γέγονε· τὰ δὲ ἐπ’ ἐμέο ἦν μεγάλα, πρότερον ἦν σμικρά. τὴν ἀνθρωπηίην ὦν ἐπιστάμενος εὐδαιμονίην οὐδαμὰ ἐν τὠυτῷ μένουσαν, ἐπιμνήσομαι ἀμφοτέρων ὁμοίως. For those that we great in the past have for the most part become small; and those that were great in my time were small in the past. Therefore, since I know that human eudaimonia never remains in the same place, I shall make mention of both alike. 49 For prototypical thinking in Arist., see, e.g., (on the Rhetoric’s definitions of the pathē) Harris 2001: 58–9 and Fortenbaugh 2008: 29–47. 50 Hau 2007. For aspects of the work in published form, see Hau 2009 (on Diodorus), 2011 (on Polybius). 51 Hau 2007: 242. 52 On alternation in Hdt., see (besides Hau 2007) Krause 1976: 199–223; Harrison 2000: 31–63 and passim. 53 Cf. Krause 1976: 221–2; Harrison 2000: 31–3, 62–3; Raaflaub 2002: 177; Van Wees 2002: 328–36; Hau 2007: 84.

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exemplarity and narrative in the greek tradition 119 The historian then proceeds immediately (1.6.1) to the exemplary tale of Croesus, the man who incurred ‘great nemesis from god’ because he did not take to heart Solon’s warning to count no man happy until he is dead (1.32.2–7), but thought himself the most prosperous of men (1.34.1), and thus, as prophesied, destroyed a great empire (1.53.3). Croesus’ experience of the mutability of fortune then qualifies him to share his insight with his conqueror, Cyrus (1.207.2): “εἰ μὲν ἀθάνατος δοκέεις εἶναι καὶ στρατιῆς τοιαύτης ἄρχειν, οὐδὲν ἂν εἴη πρῆγμα γνώμας ἐμὲ σοὶ ἀποφαίνεσθαι· εἰ δ’ ἔγνωκας ὅτι ἄνθρωπος καὶ σὺ εἶς καὶ ἑτέρων τοιῶνδε ἄρχεις, ἐκεῖνο πρῶτον μάθε ὡς κύκλος τῶν ἀνθρωπηίων ἐστὶ πρηγμάτων, περιφερόμενος δὲ οὐκ ἐᾷ αἰεὶ τοὺς αὐτοὺς εὐτυχέειν.” ‘If you think that you, and likewise the army you lead, are immortal, there would be no point in my declaring my views to you. But if you accept that you are a human being and that those you lead are the same, then you must first of all understand that there is a wheel of human affairs, and that wheel, as it turns, does not permit the same people always to be fortunate.’ Throughout this important opening narrative, gnomic wisdom is expanded using narratives of exemplary, mythologised individuals (Croesus, Solon and the subjects of Solon’s paranarratives, especially Cleobis and Biton, 1.31), all serving to illustrate traditional maxims that stand in direct relation to the principle of alternation – ‘the divine is grudging and meddlesome’ (1.32.1; cf. 1.32.9), ‘count no man happy until he is dead’ (1.32.5, 7, 9), ‘man is nothing but chance’ (because his fortunes can change in a single day, 1.32.4), ‘no human being is happy in all respects’ (1.32.8) and ‘the best thing for human beings is not to be born, or (failing that) to die as soon as possible’ (1.31.4–5).54 The Croesus-narrative has an important structural and thematic function in priming the audience for what is to come, and thus is exemplary of patterns replicated throughout.55 One could follow these narrative patterns even in the comparatively austere pages of Thucydides,56 and certainly in fourth-century and 54 On this gnōmē, see Easterling 2013; on the traditional background of Solon’s speech, cf. Harrison 2000: 38–9. 55 See Harrison 2000: 31–63, esp. 33, 51–2, 62–3; R. Thomas 2000: 105, 123; Fisher 2002: 201–2; Gray 2002: 296–7; Raaflaub 2002: 167–74; Hau 2007: 90. 56 E.g., in the structuring of his narrative of the Sicilian expedition (Cornford 1907: 188–220), where the sequence of cause and effect, from exaggerated expectations and ambitions (6.6.1, 6.8.2–3, 6.24.2, 6.31), despite Nicias’ warnings (6.9–14) and

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later historiography.57 For the purposes of this discussion, however, I propose to end with just one more example, one that that both draws on the historiographical tradition and attests the continued prominence of the Iliadic prototype of the principle of alternation many centuries after it was first promulgated – Plutarch’s Parallel Lives of Aemilius Paullus and Timoleon.58 The pair of Lives of Aemilius and Timoleon (in which the Roman, unusually, is the first) opens with one of Plutarch’s strongest statements of the exemplary purpose of biography (Aem. 1.1, 1.5):59 ἐμοὶ τῆς τῶν βίων ἅψασθαι μὲν γραφῆς συνέβη δι’ ἑτέρους, ἐπιμένειν δὲ καὶ φιλοχωρεῖν ἤδη καὶ δι’ ἐμαυτόν, ὥσπερ ἐν ἐσόπτρῳ τῇ ἱστορίᾳ πειρώμενον ἁμῶς γέ πως κοσμεῖν καὶ ἀφομοιοῦν πρὸς τὰς ἐκείνων ἀρετὰς τὸν βίον . . . ἡμεῖς δὲ τῇ περὶ τὴν ἱστορίαν διατριβῇ καὶ τῆς γραφῆς τῇ συνηθείᾳ παρασκευάζομεν ἑαυτούς, τὰς τῶν ἀρίστων καὶ δοκιμωτάτων μνήμας ὑποδεχομένους ἀεὶ ταῖς ψυχαῖς, εἴ τι φαῦλον ἢ κακόηθες ἢ ἀγεννὲς αἱ τῶν συνόντων ἐξ ἀνάγκης ὁμιλίαι προσβάλλουσιν, ἐκκρούειν καὶ διωθεῖσθαι, πρὸς τὰ κάλλιστα τῶν παραδειγμάτων ἵλεω καὶ πρᾳεῖαν ἀποστρέφοντες τὴν διάνοιαν. I find that, though I commenced the writing of my Lives for the benefit of others, I now persist and return with pleasure to the task for my own sake too, attempting, as though in a mirror, to

(footnote 56 continued) the initial setback of the mutilation of the herms (6.27–9), to disastrous failure (7.75, 7.84.2–85.1, 7.86.2, 7.87.5–6), at least makes room for the reflections on tychē and divine phthonos attributed to Nicias (7.77.2–4), and may well prompt similar thoughts in at least some of the historian’s readers, perhaps especially given the historian’s own verdict on the gulf between Nicias’ dystychia and his deserts, 7.86.5 (the negation of the eutychia with which he is credited at 5.16.1, 6.17.1), echoing Nicias’ own at 7.77.2, and the contrasts he draws between aims and outcome at 7.75.6–7 and between the glory of the victors and the dystychia of the defeated at 7.87.5; possibly also, as Cornford famously argued (1907: 174–87, esp. 185), in the juxtaposition of the Melian dialogue and the Sicilian expedition as illustrations of the inevitable results of blind over-confidence. See further Macleod 1983: 140–58; Connor 1984: 161–8, 187–8, 198–209; Stahl [1966] 2003: 180–222; Hau 2007: 55, 66–8, 111–12, 168–75, 206–8. 57 For examples from Diodorus and esp. from Polybius, cf. below. 58 On the continuity between Plutarch’s Lives and his predecessors among the historians in their use of what one might regard as ‘tragic’ themes, cf. Pelling 2002b, esp. 97–8, 106, 111 n. 27; cf. 117–41 (esp. 120–1, 130–1); cf. Pelling 2005a: 280–3. 59 Cf. Russell 1973: 100; Desideri 1989: 199–204, 212–15, 1992: 4473–5; Duff 1999: 34–6, 50, 53–4; Lamberton 2001: 72–4; Zadorojnyi 2010: 169–73, esp. on the mirror motif.

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exemplarity and narrative in the greek tradition 121 arrange my life and assimilate it to the virtues of my subjects by telling their stories . . . In my own case, since my mind is always welcoming towards the remembrance of the best and most esteemed individuals, I am equipped by the study of history and the familiarity therewith that my writing produces to shun and reject anything base, malicious or ignoble that enforced association with others may press upon me, diverting my thoughts calmly and dispassionately towards the fairest paradeigmata there are. The introduction similarly emphasises the role of good fortune (agathai tychai, eupotmia) in the success of each of the pair’s subjects (Aem. 1.6):60 ὧν ἐν τῷ παρόντι προκεχειρίσμεθά σοι τὸν Τιμολέοντος τοῦ Κορινθίου καὶ Αἰμιλίου Παύλου βίον, ἀνδρῶν οὐ μόνον ταῖς αἱρέσεσιν, ἀλλὰ καὶ ταῖς τύχαις ἀγαθαῖς ὁμοίως κεχρημένων ἐπὶ τὰ πράγματα, καὶ διαμφισβήτησιν παρεξόντων, πότερον εὐποτμίᾳ μᾶλλον ἢ φρονήσει τὰ μέγιστα τῶν πεπραγμένων κατώρθωσαν. Among these are the Lives I have chosen for you now, of Timoleon the Corinthian and Aemilius Paullus, men who were alike not only in their principles, but also in the good fortune that their careers manifested, making it a matter of debate whether their greatest successes were due to luck or to judgement.

We shall return below to issues of parallelism and comparison, with particular reference to the role of fortune and its mutability in the lives of Aemilius and Timoleon and in the structure of the narratives which recount their careers. It is clear, however, that Plutarch did not invent the association between the subjects of this pair of biographies and tychē – certainly not in the case of Aemilius,61 and very probably not in that of Timoleon either. The role of tychē, for good or for ill, in the life and career of Aemilius and Aemilius’ own circumspection with regard to tychē’s role in human affairs are clearly present in Polybius’ fragmentary narrative of the Third Macedonian War,62 reflected in 60 On Plutarch’s views on tychē, in philosophical and non-philosophical works, see Swain 1989b, esp. 274–5: ‘In more serious thinking Plutarch has no time for τύχη but he does believe in δαίμονες.’ Thus the usage of the Lives simply reflects contemporary idiom; cf. W. J. Tatum 2010a: 449. On eupotmia in Aem. 1.6, cf. Swain 1989b: 300. 61 Cf. Swain 1989c: 323: ‘Aemilius’ association with fortune was one which Plutarch found in his sources.’ Cf. Geiger 1981: 103 = 1995: 189. 62 See Walbank 1957–79: iii.378; Geiger 1981: 102–3 = 1995: 187–8; Swain 1989c: 317, 324–7; W. J. Tatum 2010a: 453–8.

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the adaptations of that account by Diodorus and Livy, and virtually proverbial by the time of Plutarch.63 Similarly, Plutarch may also have found an emphasis on tychē in Timaeus’ account of Timoleon’s campaigns in Sicily: Timaeus is cited at Timoleon 36.2 for his use of a quotation from Sophocles in presenting Timoleon as a recipient of divine favour.64 But though the centrality of tychē to these two Lives is not a Plutarchan invention, it will be instructive to explore the subtlety and artistry with which Plutarch has taken this theme and turned it into the Leitmotiv that structures each of the two narratives and guides the reader’s appreciation of the relations between them.65 L. Aemilius Paullus had a long and distinguished career, but Plutarch’s Life concentrates on a single campaign (his victory over Perseus of Macedonia, during his second consulship, at the age of around sixty, in 168 bc). The introduction to this episode begins in chapter 8; the decisive battle occupies chapters 15–21; Aemilius’ triumph and the events that surround it are narrated in chapters 30–6; the narrative of the war is concluded in chapter 37; and the work ends in 39. Its climax is clearly the (three-day) triumph held in September 167, the height of Aemilius’ success. The triumph itself is narrated as a climactic tricolon:66 its first day occupies chapter 32.4, the second chapter 32.5–9 and the third chapters 33–4. The climactic triumph, however, is postponed by a dramatic moment of crisis – the envy of Aemilius’ inferiors, masked as indignation,67 together with the political opportunism of his enemies, threatens the triumph, until (in true epinician fashion) generous recognition of genuine merit and achievement prevail (30.4–32.1). In the midst of the victory celebrations, all eyes are on Aemilius and he is admired by all good men (34.7): 63 With Aem. 24.4–6, cf. Cic. Nat. D. 2.6; Val. Max. 1.8.1; Pliny, HN 7.86; Florus 1.28.14–15. With Aem. 27.2–5, cf. Plb. 29.20 (with Walbank 1957–79: iii.392; Hau 2007: 141); Livy 45.8.6–7; D.S. 30.23.1–2; Florus 1.28.11. With Aem. 28.4, cf. Plb. 30.10; Livy 45.27.7. With Aem. 34.8–38.1, cf. Cic. ad Fam. 4.6.1, Tusc. 3.70; Livy 45.41; D.S. 31.11; Vell. 1.10.3–5; Val. Max. 5.10.2; App. Mac. 19. Cf. also Plb. 29.21 (Perseus’ downfall prompts citation of Demetrius of Phalerum on mutability; cf. D.S. 31.10, perhaps also Livy 45.9.2–7, with Walbank 1957–79: iii.393); D.S. 31.9. 4 (Aemilius once more – cf. 30.23.1–2 – sees Perseus as an example of the mutability of fortune and the need for humility in triumph); Livy 44.40.3–10 (fortuna initiates the battle of Pydna; contrast Aem. 18.1–3); Pliny, HN 34.54 (Aemilius dedicates a Phidian statue of Athena in the temple of Fortuna Huiusce Diei). 64 See Fontana 1958, esp. 7–11; Geiger 1981: 101–3 = 1995: 186–9; Swain 1989c: 327; cf. Swain 1989b: 284 n. 42; W. J. Tatum 2010a: 452. 65 Cf. Geiger 1981: 103–4 = 1995: 188–90; Swain 1989c: 314, 327–9; W. J. Tatum 2010a: 449–50. 66 Cf. Swain 1989c: 325. 67 For the issues here, see Cairns 2003 (with further lit.).

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exemplarity and narrative in the greek tradition 123 ἐδαφνηφόρει δὲ καὶ σύμπας ὁ στρατός, τῷ μὲν ἅρματι τοῦ στρατηγοῦ κατὰ λόχους καὶ τάξεις ἑπόμενος, ᾄδων δὲ τὰ μὲν ᾠδάς τινας πατρίους ἀναμεμειγμένας γέλωτι, τὰ δὲ παιᾶνας ἐπινικίους καὶ τῶν διαπεπραγμένων ἐπαίνους εἰς τὸν Αἰμίλιον, περίβλεπτον ὄντα καὶ ζηλωτὸν ὑπὸ πάντων, οὐδενὶ δὲ τῶν ἀγαθῶν ἐπίφθονον . . . The whole army also carried laurel, following the chariot of their general by companies and divisions, and singing, partly certain traditional songs with a comic element, as the ancient custom was, and partly victory paeans and encomia addressed to Aemilius, the object of everyone’s attention and admiration, begrudged by no one that was good. But Aemilius’ success is immediately undercut by adversity: no decent human being wishes him ill, but there is some force that sees to it that no prosperity is unmixed with evil (34.8):68 πλὴν εἴ τι δαιμόνιον ἄρα τῶν μεγάλων καὶ ὑπερόγκων εἴληχεν εὐτυχιῶν ἀπαρύτειν καὶ μειγνύναι τὸν ἀνθρώπινον βίον, ὅπως μηδενὶ κακῶν ἄκρατος εἴη καὶ καθαρός . . . Unless it is true that some divine force has been allotted the task of detracting from exceedingly great good fortune and of making a mixture of human existence, in order that no one’s life should be unsullied or without admixture of trouble . . . Two of Aemilius’ sons (aged 14 and 12) died, one five days before the triumph and the other three days after it. The Roman people see this as an illustration of the mutability of fortune (35.3): ὥστε μηδένα γενέσθαι Ῥωμαίων τοῦ πάθους ἀνάλγητον, ἀλλὰ φρῖξαι τὴν ὠμότητα τῆς Τύχης ἅπαντας, ὡς οὐκ ᾐδέσατο πένθος τοσοῦτον 68 Plutarch certainly seems to believe in the phenomenon to which this passage refers, but his subsequent references to tychē and her nemesis present it in a traditional idiom to whose implications he presumably does not subscribe (Swain 1989b: 300). At Mar. 23.1 the force which leaves no great success akratos and katharos is indifferently ‘tychē, nemesis or the necessary nature of affairs’ (ἡ δὲ μηθὲν ἐῶσα τῶν μεγάλων εὐτυχημάτων ἄκρατον εἰς ἡδονὴν καὶ καθαρόν, ἀλλὰ μείξει κακῶν καὶ ἀγαθῶν ποικίλλουσα τὸν ἀνθρώπινον βίον, ἢ τύχη τις ἢ νέμεσις ἢ πραγμάτων ἀναγκαία φύσις . . .). Plutarch’s use of traditional forms of expression in such passages shows how easily notions of mutability, fate and the begrudgery of divine agents can blend into one another (cf. above, pp. 112–14). On nemesis’ shift from ‘righteous indignation’ in Homer to something more like phthonos in later authors, see Konstan 2003.

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εἰς οἰκίαν ζήλου καὶ χαρᾶς καὶ θυσιῶν γέμουσαν εἰσάγουσα, καὶ καταμειγνύουσα θρήνους καὶ δάκρυα παιᾶσιν ἐπινικίοις καὶ θριάμβοις. The result was that there was no Roman unaffected by his suffering; rather, they all shuddered at the cruelty of Tyche, as she felt no compunction at bringing such great grief into a house that was full of admiration, joy and sacrifices, or at mixing up laments and tears with paeans of victory and triumphs.69 Aemilius agrees, and gives a speech in which he reflects that, in this case, this universal rule applies only to his own fortunes rather that to those of the Roman state (36.3–9). This speech is the longest of three that Aemilius makes on the same subject, and it contains several themes that occur in earlier passages of the Life and play a significant role in the structure of the narrative. First, Aemilius notes that, although his campaign against Perseus had been attended by good fortune from start to finish, he himself had never taken this for granted, but had always been afraid of some reversal (36.3, 5–6): ἔφη γάρ, ὅτι τῶν ἀνθρωπίνων οὐδὲν οὐδέποτε δείσας, τῶν δὲ θείων ὡς ἀπιστότατον καὶ ποικιλώτατον πρᾶγμα τὴν Τύχην ἀεὶ φοβηθείς, μάλιστα περὶ τοῦτον αὐτῆς τὸν πόλεμον ὥσπερ πνεύματος λαμπροῦ ταῖς πράξεσι παρούσης, διατελοίη μεταβολήν τινα καὶ παλίρροιαν προσδεχόμενος. He said that he had never been afraid of any human power, but among divine powers he had always feared Tyche, regarding her as a most untrustworthy and variable thing; and since in this war in particular she had been present in his actions like a favourable wind, he had never ceased to expect some change or reversal. “ἀπιστῶν δὲ τῇ Τύχῃ διὰ τὴν εὔροιαν τῶν πραγμάτων, ὡς ἄδεια πολλὴ καὶ κίνδυνος οὐδεὶς ἦν ἀπὸ τῶν πολεμίων, μάλιστα κατὰ πλοῦν ἐδεδίειν τὴν μεταβολὴν τοῦ δαίμονος ἐπ’ εὐτυχίᾳ , τοσοῦτον στρατὸν νενικηκότα καὶ λάφυρα καὶ βασιλεῖς αἰχμαλώτους κομίζων. οὐ μὴν ἀλλὰ καὶ σωθεὶς πρὸς ὑμᾶς, καὶ τὴν πόλιν ὁρῶν 69 Cf. the reversal (within a single hour) in the fortunes of the cities and people of Epirus, with the result that φρῖξαι δὲ πάντας ἀνθρώπους τὸ τοῦ πολέμου τέλος, εἰς μικρὸν οὕτω τὸ καθ’ ἕκαστον λῆμμα καὶ κέρδος ἔθνους ὅλου κατακερματισθέντος (‘all men shuddered at the outcome of the war, that a whole nation could be chopped up and shared out with so little profit or gain for each individual’, 29.5). On this passage, cf. Pelling 2005a: 209.

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exemplarity and narrative in the greek tradition 125 εὐφροσύνης καὶ ζήλου καὶ θυσιῶν γέμουσαν, ἔτι τὴν Τύχην δι’ ὑποψίας εἶχον, εἰδὼς οὐδὲν εἰλικρινὲς οὐδ’ ἀνεμέσητον ἀνθρώποις τῶν μεγάλων χαριζομένην.” ‘Since I distrusted Tyche because things were going so well, now that there was nothing to fear and no danger from the enemy, during my voyage home, in particular, I feared the daimōn’s change after such good fortune, since I was bringing home a victorious army of such size, with spoils and royal prisoners. Indeed, even when I had got safely back to you, and saw the city full of festive joy and admiration and sacrifices, I was still suspicious of Tyche, because I knew that she grants human beings no great favour that is straightforward or free of nemesis.’ Second, he draws the conclusion that the vanquished Perseus and the victorious Aemilius are both equally good paradeigmata of human vulnerability (36.9): “ἱκανῶς γὰρ ἐμοὶ καὶ τοῖς ἐμοῖς κακοῖς εἰς τὴν τῶν κατωρθωμένων ἀποκέχρηται νέμεσιν, οὐκ ἀφανέστερον ἔχουσα παράδειγμα τῆς ἀνθρωπίνης ἀσθενείας τοῦ θριαμβευομένου τὸν θριαμβεύοντα· πλὴν ὅτι Περσεὺς μὲν ἔχει καὶ νενικημένος τοὺς παῖδας, Αἰμίλιος δὲ τοὺς αὑτοῦ νικήσας ἀπέβαλεν.” ‘For she [sc. Tyche] has made sufficient use of me and my afflictions to satisfy her nemesis at our successes,70 since she has as clear an example of human frailty in the hero of the triumph as in its victim; except that Perseus, even though defeated, keeps his children, while Aemilius, the victor, has lost his.’

Both these points punctuate the work as it builds towards its climax: there are repeated references to Aemilius’ exceptional good fortune (or divine protection),71 portents presage Aemilius’ success and Perseus’ defeat,72 and the contrast between the noble Aemilius and the avaricious, cowardly and possibly base-born Perseus, especially in their reactions to good or ill fortune, recurs.73 Where Perseus’ faults 70 For the thought that one’s sufferings to date should be enough to satisfy divine resentment, cf. Nicias at Thuc. 7.77.3. Nicias speaks of phthonos, but Aemilius of nemesis; cf. n. 68 above. 71 12.1, 19.6, 24.2–6. 72 10.6–8, 17.7–11, 24.4–6. 73 12.3–6, 12.12, 19.4–6, 23.1–24.1, 26.4–12, 27.4–5, 33.6–8, 37.2. For Perseus as a foil, cf. Swain 1989c: 325 (cf. 321–2 on Hicetas as foil for Timoleon in Tim.). On the presentation of Perseus, see further Scuderi 2004–5.

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and misjudgements contribute to Aemilius’ luck and Perseus’ own downfall, Aemilius himself is careful throughout to avoid tempting fate, remaining cautious when things go well and constantly reminding others, especially the less experienced, of the dangers of becoming carried away by success.74 These dangers are exemplified by his own son, Scipio Aemilianus (22.2–9): Aemilius fears that the seventeenyear-old Scipio has become elated by victory and perished, but he lives to become the destroyer of Carthage and Numantia, while Tyche merely defers the effects of her nemesis at Aemilius’ success until another day (22.9): Αἰμιλίῳ μὲν οὖν τὴν τοῦ κατορθώματος νέμεσιν εἰς ἕτερον ἡ Τύχη καιρὸν ὑπερβαλλομένη, τότε παντελῆ τὴν ἡδονὴν ἀπεδίδου τῆς νίκης. So Tyche deferred her nemesis at Aemilius’ success for another occasion, and for the moment gave him back in its entirety his pleasure in his victory. This is not just the general idea that good fortune is inherently unstable and that vicissitude is inevitable,75 an idea that might simply be regarded as the common currency of Greek popular thought. Rather, the notion is explicitly presented in thoroughly Iliadic terms.76 The climax of the Life’s narrative, the reversal which occurs at the height of Aemilius’ success, is introduced with a direct allusion to the parable of the jars (34.8): ὅπως μηδενὶ κακῶν ἄκρατος εἴη καὶ καθαρός, ἀλλὰ καθ’ Ὅμηρον ἄριστα δοκῶσι πράττειν, οἷς αἱ τύχαι ῥοπὴν ἐπ’ ἀμφότερα τῶν πραγμάτων ἔχουσιν (‘in order that no one’s life should be unsullied or without admixture of trouble, but that, as Homer says, those may be regarded as best off whose fortunes shift in the balance, now this way, now that’).77 But this is not all. We are alerted to the relevance 74 17.3–4, 17.10–13, 27.1–6. 75 On the mutability of fortune in the Lives in general, see Russell 1973: 115; Duff 1999: 41–2; Pelling 1986: 93–5 = 2002a: 356–8. 76 On Homeric (and tragic) patterns in the Lives, see Mossman [1988] 1995; Zadorojniy 1997; D’Ippolito 2004; cf. n. 58 above. 77 Plutarch cites or alludes to the passage also at Aud. poet. 20e (Il. 24.525–6), 22b (24.525–6), 24a (24.527–8); Cons. Apoll. 105c–d (24.522–33); Is. et Os. 369c (24.527–8); Tranq. an. 473b (24.527–8); Exil. 600c (24.527–8). Cf. the quotation of Il. 24.560–1, 569–70 and 584–6 at Aud. poet. 31a–c. The versions of 24.527–8 used in 24b and 600d are influenced by the variant cited by Plato at Resp. 379d (Díaz Lavado 2010: 277; Hunter and Russell 2011: 135). On Plutarch’s use of the parable in the Moralia, see D’Ippolito 2004: 28–30; Díaz Lavado 2010: 276–80. On his use of Homer in general in the Moralia, see Bréchet 2004/5; D’Ippolito 2004 (cf. D’Ippolito 2007); Díaz Lavado 2010.

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of Achilles’ encounter with Priam in the very first chapter, when Plutarch, presenting his research on his biographical subjects as a kind of personal acquaintance, quotes Il. 24.630 (Priam admires Achilles’ ‘stature and appearance’, ὅσσος ἔην οἷός τε). But the influence goes further: the captured Perseus supplicates (26. 9), as does Priam, and Aemilius accepts his supplication, and not only the acceptance but also the language in which it is described recall the Iliadic scene: with Aem. 27.1 (τοῦτον μὲν ἀναστήσας καὶ δεξιωσάμενος Τουβέρωνι παρέδωκεν, ‘he raised Perseus up, gave him his hand and entrusted him to Tubero’) compare Il. 24.515–16 (γέροντα δὲ χειρὸς ἀνίστη οἰκτίρων πολιόν τε κάρη πολιόν τε γένειον, ‘he raised the old man by his hand, pitying his hoary head and hoary beard’). The difference is that, whereas Achilles pities his enemy (a feature of the Iliad passage whose cultural significance can scarcely be overestimated),78 Aemilius is deprived of the opportunity to pity Perseus by the latter’s ignoble behaviour: he at first takes Perseus to be ‘a great man brought low by the anger of the gods and the hostility of fortune’ (ὡς ἀνδρὶ μεγάλῳ πεπτωκότι πτῶμα νεμεσητὸν καὶ δυστυχές) and comes to meet him with tears in his eyes (ἐξαναστὰς προϋπήντα μετὰ τῶν φίλων δεδακρυμένος, 26.8), but Perseus’ abject behaviour leads him to believe that it is the latter’s prosperity, not his misfortune, that is undeserved (26.10). Defeat of such an unworthy opponent detracts from Aemilius’ success (26.11), and Perseus is devoid of the aretē that attracts aidōs,79 even for a defeated enemy (26.12): “τί τῆς τύχης” εἶπεν “ὦ ταλαίπωρε τὸ μέγιστον ἀφαιρεῖς τῶν ἐγκλημάτων, ταῦτα πράττων ἀφ’ ὧν δόξεις οὐ παρ’ ἀξίαν ἀτυχεῖν, οὐδὲ τοῦ νῦν, ἀλλὰ τοῦ πάλαι δαίμονος ἀνάξιος γεγονέναι; τί δέ μου καταβάλλεις τὴν νίκην καὶ τὸ κατόρθωμα ποιεῖς μικρόν, ἐπιδεικνύμενος ἑαυτὸν οὐ γενναῖον οὐδὲ πρέποντα Ῥωμαίοις ἀνταγωνιστήν; ἀρετή τοι δυστυχοῦσι μεγάλην ἔχει μοῖραν αἰδοῦς καὶ παρὰ πολεμίοις, δειλία δὲ Ῥωμαίοις κἂν εὐποτμῇ πάντων ἀτιμότατον.” ‘You wretch,’ he said, ‘Why do you free tychē from the strongest charge you could make, by behaving in ways that will make people think that you deserve your misfortunes, and that it is not 78 Cf. esp. S. Aj. 121–6. The notion that an enemy’s defeat underlines the mutability to which all are subject, and should therefore appeal to the humanity of the victor, is common in the Hellenistic and later historiography on which Plutarch draws. See esp. Plb. 29.20–1, on Aemilius and Perseus, and cf. Plb. 15.17.4, 38.21; D.S. 13.20–7, 28–32, 17.38.4–7, 27.6.1, 31.3.1–3 (with Hau 2007: 37–43, 139, 141). 79 Another feature of the source context in Homer: see Il. 24.503.

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your present lot, but your previous one that was undeserved? And why do you undermine my victory and diminish my success, by showing that you are not a noble or even a fitting antagonist for Romans? Aretē in the unfortunate brings great aidōs even in the eyes of their enemies, but, for Romans, cowardice, even if it prospers, is the most dishonourable thing of all.’ (Plut. Aem. 26.10–12) Clearly, then, the presentation of the theme of the mutability of fortune in the Aemilius draws explicitly on the classic articulation and presentation of that theme in the Iliad. As in the Iliad, the principle of alternation not only structures the narrative but is also voiced authoritatively at an important point in that narrative. Also as in the Iliad, the ethical and emotional implications of the theme for the external audience are drawn out by means of the focalisation of internal ­audiences – as Achilles pities Priam, so the Romans shudder at the misfortune that strikes Aemilius at the height of his success (35.3).80 And, again as in the Iliad, the theme is used to articulate the vulnerability that unites all human beings, friend and foe, winner and loser: as the Romans shudder at the fate of Aemilius, so ‘everyone’ shudders at the outcome of the war, that the wealth of an entire nation should amount to so little once divided in the hands of its conquerors (29.5); and the counterpart of Aemilius’ success is the downfall of Perseus, a reminder of that vulnerability that is realised in the personal tragedy that strikes at the height of Aemilius’ success. Already in that regard, the Life of Aemilius exhibits a pronounced comparative aspect: the careers of Aemilius and Perseus engage the capacities of comparison and contrast that underlie the entire project of parallel biography.81 Accordingly, to get the most out of this pair of Lives, and their meditations on the mutability of fortune, we need to read each in the light of the other. Tychē is not only the Leitmotiv of the Aemilius, but also the theme that unites Aemilius–Timoleon as a pair.82 In that regard, the two biographies present similar careers with different emphases, but what is explicit and salient in the one is often implicit in the other.83 First, the motif of tychē not only links 80 Cf. Pelling 2005a: 282–3. 81 For the comparison of Aemilius and Perseus as a reflection of Plutarch’s project, see W. J. Tatum 2010b: 7–8. 82 Cf. n. 65 above. 83 For general points on the interrelations between the Lives in each pair and the need to read each via the other, see Erbse [1956] 1979; Stadter [1975] 1995; Pelling [1986] 2002a, 2005b; Desideri 1992; Duff 1999; cf. the contributions to Humble 2010, esp. W. J. Tatum 2010b: 1–8; cf. W. J. Tatum 2010a: 452. Specifically on

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but also distinguishes the two Lives as sections of a single book, as the first Life’s movement to a climax in which good fortune is immediately mixed with bad is followed by the second’s progress from early misfortune (Timoleon’s part in the killing of his brother, 4.4–7.1) to prodigious success.84 The Aemilius, moreover, unfolds in a simple diachronic sequence in which, as we saw, the triumph and the events that surround it form a clear climax; the structure of Timoleon, on the other hand, is more complex, beginning with a reference to its main event (Timoleon’s expedition to Sicily, 1.1), before going back in time, relating first the state of the island at that point (1.2–2.4), and then Timoleon’s early career as a soldier (3.5–7.2), culminating in his part in his brother’s murder (4.5–8), a part he played only when all alternatives failed and because his patriotism, sense of honour and justice, and hatred of tyrants and villains (3.5, 5.1) proved stronger than familial solidarity. The opprobrium that this brought him, together with his mother’s anger, then drives Timoleon from public life, for a period of almost twenty years (5.2–4, 7.1);85 it is at the end of that period that he is chosen general for the expedition to Sicily (7.2), an enterprise that then occupies the Life in chronological sequence until Sicily is free of tyrants and the Carthaginians banished to their own part of the island (to 34.7). The honour and popularity that Timoleon thereafter enjoys and the honours he receives on death then bring the biography to a close (chapters 35–9). Thus the sequence of the main narrative (success and its rewards) demonstrates the function of the inset, early-years narrative (misfortune and opprobrium) as a contrasting mise en abyme. Within these differences of structure, however, the two narratives exhibit many similarities of theme. In both, the mutability of fortune is a factor that affects all, winners and losers, hero and foil, virtuous and vicious: not only Aemilius and Timoleon, but also their negative counterparts (Perseus in the former case, Hicetas and especially Dionysius in the latter), serve as paradigms of vicissitude.86 The failure Aem.-Tim., see Geiger 1981: 99–104 = 1995: 184–90; Desideri 1989; Swain 1989c, esp. 314; W. J. Tatum 2010a. 84 For Geiger 1981: 104 = 1995: 189–90 it is this sequence that explains why Aem. comes first; Swain 1989c: 314 rightly suspects that the importance of the theme runs deeper than that. 85 Aemilius also has his ‘wilderness years’: Aem. 6.8–10, 10.1. 86 For Perseus in Aem. see above. In Tim., the hero’s eutychia and aretē are clearly mirrored in the contrasting presentation of his opponents, and Hicetas is a central aspect of this antithesis; but it is the career of Dionysius that is in particular singled out for moralising on the mutability of fortune – his surrender represents ‘unexpected eutychia’ for Timoleon (13.3), but also occasions reflections on the extremes of vicissitude to which a single human life can be subject (13.8–10), his

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of these negative paradigms to respond to their circumstances with dignity thus highlights the aretē that characterises both Aemilius and Timoleon in their attitudes to vicissitude.87 This is a theme that is signalled in the prologue to both Lives (whether their success was due to eupotmia or phronēsis, Aem. 1.6, quoted above) and one to which Plutarch returns in the synkrisis (2.10–12),88 where Aemilius’ strength of character in dealing with the loss of his sons (Aem. 26.1–27.1) is contrasted favourably with Timoleon’s utter dejection following the killing of his brother (Tim. 5.2–4, 7.1, with moralising commentary in 6.1–7).89 But though the interaction of aretē and tychē is indeed a theme of both Lives, highlighted especially in the ‘bravery and confidence’, the ‘great and noble expression of a sincere and honest character’, with which Aemilius is said to face up to tychē at 36.1 and 37.1,90 the expression of the antithesis as such is perhaps more explicit and salient in Timoleon.91 In the end, however, Aemilius and Timoleon are alike; the way that they themselves emphasise the role of tychē in their success illustrates the aretē of which the narrative gives ample testimony (Aem. 27.2–6, Tim. 36.5–6).92

(footnote 86 continued) fall from tyrant to wastrel a ‘work of tychē’ (14.3) that evokes mockery and rejoicing among those who see him ‘overthrown by tychē’, but sympathy in those for whom his metabolē represents the vulnerability of all human beings to ‘the power of invisible, divine causation’ (14.2). For Dionysius’ dystychia as the explicit complement of Timoleon’s eutychia, see 16.1. 87 Perseus: see esp. 26.8–12, 34.1–4 (discussed above); Dionysius, see Tim. 15, esp. Dionysius’ remark at 15.4: ‘Don’t you think that the way I bear my change of tychē shows how I profited from association with Plato?’ 88 On the Plutarchan prologue as an introduction to both Lives in a pair, see Duff 2011. 89 On the aretē–tychē antithesis in Plutarch, see Swain 1989d on De fort. Rom.; cf. Lamberton 2001: 98–9. 90 Cf. the combination of aretē and eutychia in the history of Aemilius’ family at Aem. 2.3, the references to or illustrations of Aemilius’ aretai at 2.6, 4.3–5, 5.8, 10.1, 13.6, 18.1, 28.1–11, 30.1, 31.4, 39.9 and (esp.) the proleptic verdict on the respective roles of tychē and divine favour versus virtue in the victory over Perseus at 12.1–3. On the presence of the theme in both Lives, see Desideri 1989: 204–13; Swain 1989c: 324, 330–1. On his response to misfortune as a mark of Aemilius’ aretē, cf. Desideri 1989: 208–9; Swain 1989b: 275; on tychē as a test of character in general, cf. Swain 1989a: 64–5, 67–8. For the same theme in Polybius and for the relevance of the Polybian belief in Aem., cf. W. J. Tatum 2010a: 454–8, 460. The theme emerges programmatically at Plb. 1.1.2, and is restated with reference to Aemilius himself at 29.20 (W. J. Tatum 2010a: 454–5; cf. Hau 2007: 141); cf., e.g., 18.33.4–8, on Philip V. 91 Explicitly at 19.1, 21.4–5, 36.4–5, 37.5; implicit in 6.1–7.2, 15.1–4 (Dionysius), 26.3, 38.1; cf. Swain 1989c: 330–1. 92 As W. J. Tatum remarks (2010a: 452), Timoleon’s words at 36.5–6 represent ‘a gesture Plutarch elsewhere records as an elegant example of self-praise (de laud. ipsius 542E)’.

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The way that a theme can be salient and explicit in one of the pair, less salient but still significant in the other, is further illustrated by the presentation of our central topic, the mutability of fortune and the impossibility of unmixed eudaimonia. In the Aemilius, disaster strikes at the height of Aemilius’ success, whereas Timoleon puts his early misfortunes behind him and ends his days secure in the honour and esteem in which he is held by the recipients of his benefactions.93 But Timoleon’s felicity is not entirely unmixed: by remaining in Sicily rather than returning to Corinth, he avoids the malicious resentment of one’s fellow citizens (πολιτικὸς φθόνος) that typically attends the successful (and ambitious) general (36.8), but not even he can escape phthonos entirely. Attacked by Syracusan demagogues, he uses their very freedom to attack him as a token of the benefactions that are properly appreciated by the vast majority of their fellows (37.1–3). Even then, however, his retirement is not entirely free of setbacks: he gradually loses his sight, eventually becoming completely blind (37.7–10). Though Plutarch is at pains to emphasise that this is an affliction that runs in his family rather than an arbitrary ‘insult’ on the part of Tyche (οὔτε παροινηθεὶς ὑπὸ τῆς Tύχης, 37.7), it is nonetheless a symphora (that brings out both his own strength of character and the esteem in which he is held by the Syracusans, 38.1–3). In this way, in a minor key and in the midst of a much more pronounced emphasis on Timoleon’s felicity, the pattern that we see in the phthonos that threatens Aemilius’ triumph (Aem. 30.4–32.1), the misfortune that strikes at the height of his success (demonstrating the truth of the gnōmē, supported by the Iliadic parable of the jars, that ‘no one’s life is entirely free of misfortune’, Aem. 34.8), and the fortitude and wisdom with which Aemilius bears his misfortune (Aem. 36.1–37.1) is replicated in the case of Timoleon. The principle of alternation, though explicitly enunciated and explicitly related to its emblematic statement in the Iliad only in the Aemilius, recurs as an organising principle, an ethical norm, and a template that structures audience response also in the Timoleon. 94 Both Lives, then, manifest the whole-life perspective that is characteristic of traditional Greek thought on the nature of eudaimonia. In both, the vicissitudes of fortune play a substantial role in the subject’s career. And in both, the subject’s overall felicity, emphasised particularly in the concluding sections with reference to the esteem 93 Tim. 36.1–39.7, the length of this section in itself attesting to the emphasis on Timoleon’s eudaimonia; the equivalent section in Aem. is two chapters to Tim.’s four. 94 Cf. Pelling 1986: 94 = 2002a: 357.

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in which he is held by peers and posterity, is attained not just by an alliance of eutychia and aretē, but by the kind of aretē that proves itself when tychē is most testing. Both Lives emphasise personal qualities, personal vicissitudes. Undeniably, however, the Timoleon (as Simon Swain has pointed out) places much greater and more explicit emphasis on the interplay of individual tychē and divine providence. Throughout, Timoleon’s affairs are apparently guided by an unseen supernatural force whose aims coincide with his own – the freedom of the Greeks in Sicily from tyrannical rule and barbarian domination.95 On the apparent contrast between the two Lives in this respect, Swain observes:96 ‘Plutarch might have developed these ideas about providence in Aem. too. He chose not to. He doubtless felt that the events in which Aemilius was involved were not after all stupendous and were for the most part explicable in human terms alone.’ A priori, this explanation seems unlikely. But it is not just that, as Swain himself emphasises, Plutarch elsewhere shows himself to be a believer in the providential rise of Rome (and in the political and military decline of Greece that is its counterpart).97 Nor is it merely that Plutarch also identifies Aemilius Paullus as a figure whose own good fortune contributed to that rise.98 It is not even that, as Tatum persuasively argues, Plutarch’s emphasis on the role of tychē in Aemilius’ career strongly suggests engagement with Polybius, whose presentation of Aemilius exemplifies his programmatic views on the moral purpose of historiography and for whom Aemilius’ defeat of the last king of Macedonia is the event that decisively confirms the decline of Greece’s fortunes and the rise of Rome’s.99 All of these things are relevant; but 95 See Tim. 3.1–3, 13.4, 8.1–8, 12.3, 12.9, 13.1, 14.2–3, 16.1, 16.10–12, 19.1, 20.1, 20.11, 21.5, 21.7, 26.1–6, 27.9, 28.2, 30.3, 30.6–7, 30.10, 36.2, 36.5, 37.5, 37.7. For this as a project of providence, cf. Dion 4.3–4, 50.4, with Swain 1989c: 329. 96 1989c: 334; cf. 1989b: 275: ‘Aemilius’ campaign did not produce really great changes in the world.’ 97 On the rise of Rome, see Fab. 27.2, De fort. Rom. 317f–318a (Rome as Tyche’s final destination), 342b–d, with Swain 1989b: 286–98, 1989c: 327 n. 48, 1989d; cf. W. J. Tatum 2010a: 450 n. 4; for Greece’s destined decline Dem. 19.1, Phoc. 28.2–3, Phil. 17.2, Flam. 12.10 (with Swain 1989b: 281–5, 293). In the last two passages cited, the point is that Rome’s rise is Greece’s fall. 98 See De fort. Rom. 4, 318b–c, where Aemilius is an example of the Roman leaders whose tychē (which must encompass his success against Perseus) has contributed to that of Rome in general; cf. Swain 1989d: 508–9. 99 See W. J. Tatum 2010a: 454–6 on Plb. 1.4.1, 1.4.4–5, with 29.20 (where Aemilius himself ‘reprises Polybius’ own views on the purpose of history’, W. J. Tatum 2010a: 455); cf. Plb. 29.21.1–9 – it is significant that Polybius located this digression on Demetrius of Phalerum’s views on on tychē at this point (W. J. Tatum 2010a: 456). On Plb. 1.4.1, 4–5, cf. Hau 2011: 187–9, 196. Hau 2011 in general makes substantial progress over earlier scholarship in seeing the underlying schema to which all senses of tychē in Polybius might be related.

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exemplarity and narrative in the greek tradition 133 the crucial point is that the providential interpretation of Aemilius’ part in the rise of Rome is not in fact absent from the pairing of Aemilius and Timoleon. First, the synkrisis presents the achievements of both in parallel terms: while Timoleon ‘removed all the tyrannies from Sicily and freed the island’, Aemilius ‘took Macedonia and ended the line of succession that began with Antigonus in the reign of its seventh king’ (Comp. 1.2; cf. 2.8). The end of the Macedonian dynasty is by no means a negligible stage in the rise of Rome: this is emphasised by Aemilius’ observation that the fall of ‘the succession of Alexander’ suggests the instability of all success,100 a point that recalls Polybius’ assessment at 29.21, where the defeat of Perseus prompts the historian’s reminiscence of the similar conclusions drawn by Demetrius of Phalerum regarding Alexander’s conquest of Persia and the rise and fall of great powers. Nor is the fall of Macedon, in Aemilius, an achievement that is won without supernatural guidance: if the omens and the like recounted in the Timoleon (three in chapter 8 alone, at the beginning of his enterprise, others in 12.9, 26, 31.6–7) indicate the plans of providence, the Aemilius also has its fair share; the explicit point of those that are related in Aem. 24.2–6 is to demonstrate that there was something supernatural (daimonion, 24.3) or divine (θειότητι . . . καὶ τύχῃ, 24.4) about Aemilius’ eutychia. The notion of divine favour, as we saw above, punctuates the narrative.101 Similarly, Swain (1989c: 326–7) is surely wrong that, unlike Livy at 45.41.2, ‘Plutarch does not choose to contrast Rome’s permanent public fortune with Aemilius’ private disaster’, but rather (in his speech to the populace following the death of his sons) ‘has Aemilius contrast his own public fortune in the campaign with his personal misfortune at home’: in fact Aemilius is quite explicit both about his relief that tragedy has marred only his own personal fortunes rather than ‘the future of the state’ (36.7) and about his confidence that tychē will remain constant in favouring Rome and her people (‘you’, 36.8). These, to be sure, are slight indications, but it is much more likely that they are to be understood in the light not only of widely shared assumptions regarding Rome’s destiny, but also of the explicit reflections of the providential guidance of the world in Timoleon; the second 100 A point that is kept before us by the references to Alexander and the Macedonian dynasty to which Perseus belongs at 8.1ff., 12.9–11, 23.9 and esp. 31.5 (Aemilius’ triumph entails the display of ‘the king of Macedon taken alive and the glory of Alexander and Philip led as booty under Roman arms’). 101 See the references cited in nn. 71–2 above, and cf. W. J. Tatum 2010a: 453. I see no basis for Swain’s assertion that ‘there is nothing comparable in Aem.’ to the omens of Tim. 8, 12 and 26 (1989c: 332).

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Life offers a way of reading the first that makes explicit and salient what would otherwise remain in the background.102 The two narratives, as a pair, concern the mutability of fortune as it affects states as well as individuals (a historiographical topos that goes back, as we have seen, to Herodotus). Paradoxically, the Roman Life highlights, in thoroughly Greek terms, the vicissitudes of a single life, a central focus of traditional Greek thought on the nature and possibility of happiness; while the Greek Life exemplifies the notion of historical destiny that is so important for Rome and the Romans. Though Plutarch’s appreciation of Timoleon’s providential mission in ridding Sicily of tyrants and keeping the Carthaginians at bay is no doubt genuine,103 the fact that his narrative of these events is preceded by that of a crucial stage in Rome’s providential rise implies the temporal limitations of Timoleon’s achievement;104 the destiny of free Greek states, in Sicily and elsewhere, makes way for that of Rome. Yet Timoleon’s achievements had their legitimate place in the providential scheme of things. The Lives of Aemilius and Timoleon, taken together as a single book, are saying something about the place of Greek and Roman civilisation in world history. If it is the Timoleon that emphasises the broader questions of the rise and fall of states and cultures, it is the Aemilius that establishes, for this pair of Lives, the relevance of the classic model of the principle of alternation. As we see not least from their presence in Livy, these ideas were in Plutarch’s day the common coin of Roman as well as Greek thought.105 But Plutarch re-emphasises their Greekness. He does so partly in his presentation of Aemilius as an untypically philo102 So W. J. Tatum 2010a: 460: ‘in Plutarch, the providential forces that so conspicuously propel Timoleon’s liberation of the Greeks of Sicily recall, for the reader of this pairing, the world historical impulse that brought Rome to greatness by way of the career of Aemilius Paullus. The freedom of the Greeks and the rise of Rome are results borne [sic] of the same providence.’ 103 Swain 1989c: 329, 333–4; cf. Swain 1989b: 283–4. For W. J. Tatum 2010a: 459–60, Plutarch’s emphasis on this point constitutes a correction of Polybius’ attack on Timaeus (Plb. 12.23.4–6) for magnifying events that were of only limited significance by comparison with the rise of Rome. On Timoleon as the only great figure of his generation who succeeded in the Isocratean project of making war only on barbarians and tyrants, rather than on other Greek states, see Tim. 37.4. 104 As Swain notes (1989b: 292–3), Timoleon’s successes ‘were of limited duration (as Plutarch must have known)’. 105 For the appeal of classic Greek formulations of the principle of alternation at Rome, cf. Cic. Tusc. 3.24.59–25.60, quoting E. Hyps. 921–7 (in translation). At a very general level, we may even be dealing with a narrative universal, in so far as ‘the narrative mode . . . deals in human or human-like intention and action and the vicissitudes and consequences that mark their course’ (Bruner 1986: 13; cf. Bruner 1986: 16–18, 88; Oatley 2012: 23, 45, 191).

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sophical Roman, allegedly descended from Pythagoras, the nomen of his gens etymologised in Greek (2.2), who practised virtue, not forensic oratory (2.6), and who sees the value of Greek education (6.8–9), so that his sons became devoted to literature (28.11).106 But above all Plutarch re-Hellenises the theme of the mutability of fortune by situating it firmly in the Greek poetic tradition.107 Though the Timoleon also underscores its emphasis on the theme of tychē by the deployment of literary quotation,108 it is the relation of the Aemilius to Iliad 24 (by means of two quotations and one clear allusion) that really sets the tone, for that Life and for the pair. In making the life of Aemilius, in particular, conform to a pattern established in a salient passage of Greek civilisation’s most exemplary artistic production, and by making Aemilius himself – the man who finally ended the Macedonian monarchy and thus completed a crucial step in Rome’s rise to hegemony – a prototype of Roman philhellenism, Plutarch underlines the abiding claims of a Greek literary and intellectual culture that survives Greece’s political and military subordination to Rome.109 Central to Plutarch’s narrative in Aemilius is the Iliadic and archaic idea that good fortune is a fragile thing, because suffering is intrinsic to the human condition, whether one is good or bad, careful or reckless, great or insignificant. These are traditional ideas about the nature of happiness that bring with them traditional ways of feeling, traditional ways of responding to the texts that embody these ways of feeling, texts that exemplify traditional values by associating them with exemplary narratives of the lives of exemplary figures. The Greekness of the Life of Aemilius Paullus (and thus of the pair of Lives to which it belongs) lies not only in the way that its narrative structure, its exemplary moral purpose and its intellectual and emotional content are all inextricably linked, but also in the way that, like other texts that 106 Cf. 3.3: Aemilius’ augurship is not just a step on the cursus honorum, but manifests a genuine, quasi-philosophical religiosity. As Swain notes (1989c: 316), Aemilius’ ‘unusual and Hellenic sounding education (2.6), which Plutarch has probably fabricated, prefigures his philhellenism (28) and moral courage (36)’; cf. Swain 1990: 132–3 = 1995: 240–1. W. J. Tatum 2013 sees Plutarch’s project of emphasising Aemilius’ quasi-Hellenic virtues also in the account of Aemilius’ decision to dig wells in the vicinity of Mt Olympus at Aem. 14. 107 Cf., e.g., Dionysius of Halicarnassus’ presentation (via extensive evocation of the speech of Phoenix and the allegory of the Litai, Il. 9.496–514) of Coriolanus as a second Achilles at Ant. Rom. 8.50.3–4 (with M. Davies 2005). Várhelyi 2012: 124–8 usefully situates this presentation in the context of the development of synkrisis as practised by Plutarch. 108 Sophocles at 1.3; Euripides, as quoted by Euthymus at 32.3; Timaeus’ quotation of Sophocles at 36.2. 109 For Rome’s philhellenism as a factor in her providential rise to dominance, see Flam. 12.1–10, with Swain 1989b: 293.

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engage with the same ideas, it returns explicitly to the source of these narrative and cultural models in the most seminal and authoritative works of Greek literature.110 The principle of alternation is not unique as traditional wisdom or as narrative theme, nor is the tradition that recurs to that principle uniquely Greek in intellectual, affective or aesthetic terms. Yet the principle has, for the Greeks themselves, a special place in Greek culture. It is a normative pattern to which Greek artists and audiences repeatedly turn as a means of making sense of and giving form to experience. This they do in forms as minimal as a single gnōmē and as extensive as the Iliad, but at either end of the spectrum the principle of alternation is a pattern that cries out for exemplification in narratives of the doings and sufferings of specific individuals. The tendency to encapsulate the pattern of vicissitude, with its attendant normative and emotional associations, in traditional narratives of an exemplary character is a salient and typical feature of the Greek literary tradition, found in some of its most authoritative and influential manifestations. It is thus an interesting example of the ways in which the shared and social aspects of traditional literary genres play a constitutive role in the ways that a culture represents to itself its models of mind, morality and emotion.

110 On the importance in Plutarch’s biographical project of the characteristic norms and paradigms of traditional Greek thought, cf. Desideri 1992: 4481–6.

7 ‘WHERE DO I BEGIN?’: AN ODYSSEAN NARRATIVE STRATEGY AND ITS AFTERLIFE Richard Hunter If modern narratology has a point of origin, or its own aetiology, then Odysseus’ words to Alcinous at the start of Book 9 of the Odyssey have as good a claim as any to take pride of place: σοὶ δ’ ἐμὰ κήδεα θυμὸς ἐπετράπετο στονόεντα εἴρεσθ’, ὄφρ’ ἔτι μᾶλλον ὀδυρόμενος στεναχίζω. τί πρῶτόν τοι ἔπειτα, τί δ’ ὑστάτιον καταλέξω; κήδε’ ἐπεί μοι πολλὰ δόσαν θεοὶ Οὐρανίωνες. νῦν δ’ ὄνομα πρῶτον μυθήσομαι, ὄφρα καὶ ὑμεῖς εἴδετ’, ἐγὼ δ’ ἂν ἔπειτα φυγὼν ὕπο νηλεὲς ἦμαρ ὑμῖν ξεῖνος ἔω καὶ ἀπόπροθι δώματα ναίων.

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But your spirit has determined to ask about my grievous troubles, so that even more must I groan in lamentation. What then shall I recount first, what last? Many are the troubles which the gods of heaven have given me. First, I shall tell you my name, that you may know it, and that, if I escape the day of destruction, I may be your guest-friend, though I live far from here. (Od. 9.12–18) Throughout ancient literature, narrators and public speakers return time and again to Odysseus’ proem, though very few perhaps with the pointed bitterness of one of the earliest imitators, Gorgias’ Palamedes, who begins his apologia against Odysseus’ accusations with an echo of Odysseus’ own apologos: περὶ τούτων δὲ λέγων πόθεν ἄρξωμαι; τί δὲ πρῶτον εἴπω; ποῖ δὲ τῆς ἀπολογίας τράπωμαι;

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In speaking about these things, from what point shall I begin? What am I to say first? To which part of my defence am I to turn? (Gorgias, Palamedes 4)1 This chapter will be concerned with a few more examples drawn from the afterlife of Odysseus’ opening words, but there is an important point to be made at once. Although Odysseus’ proem sees him behaving very much like a bard or rhapsode,2 his ‘rhetorical’ question at 9.14 seems at the first level simply to emphasise how much he has suffered, that is, how much material exists for a narration of suffering, rather than to express a quandary about narrative τάξις, ‘ordering’; nevertheless, the two issues are here already mutually implicated. One of our most important ancient narratological texts, Aelius Theon’s discussion of διήγημα, devotes considerable space to these issues, and when he notes right at the beginning that, under the heading of χρόνος (the fifth of the six elements of ‘narrative’, which seems as good a translation of διήγημα as any), falls ‘what came first, what second and so forth’ (78.32–3 Sp.), we should, I think, hear a faded scholastic echo of Odysseus’ question. Odysseus’ apologoi indeed set the ancient narratological agenda. When Theon later warns against saying the same things twice (80.28 Sp.), we should recall the final words of Odysseus’ narration:          τί τοι τάδε μυθολογεύω; 450 ἤδη γάρ τοι χθιζὸς ἐμυθεόμην ἐνὶ οἴκῳ σοί τε καὶ ἰφθίμῃ ἀλόχῳ· ἐχθρὸν δέ μοί ἐστιν αὖτις ἀριζήλως εἰρημένα μυθολογεύειν. Why am I telling these tales? Already yesterday I told them in your house to you and your noble wife. It is hateful to me to tell again tales which have already been very clearly told. (Od. 12.450–3) These verses were in fact to embarrass the scholiasts, as ‘repetitions’ were one of the most familiar features of the Homeric texts, though   1 There is uncertainty about the text at the beginning, but it does not affect the point being made. It is a pity that we do not know more of the context of Cephisodorus fr. 13 K-A, cited by Athenaeus at the head of Book 11, ἄγε δή, τίς ἀρχὴ τῶν λόγων γενήσεται;.   2 Cf., e.g., Kelly 2008a: 178. Odysseus’ ‘problem’ of narrative choice is, of course, also Homer’s (cf. below p. 155), one implied by his request to the Muse at 1.10 (where see Di Benedetto’s note, 2010: ad loc.). For other relevant aspects of the ‘Golden Verses’ cf. Ford 1999 and Hunter forthcoming b.

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‘where do i begin?’: an odyssean narrative strategy 139 explanations for Homeric practice were not hard to find (cf. the scholia on 12. 453).3 The reason why one did not want to repeat oneself was that such repetition was the enemy of clarity, σαφήνεια (cf. Theon loc. cit., Anon. Seg. 82 Dilts-Kennedy), and it is probably not too rash a speculation that not merely the injunction against repetition, but also Odysseus’ emphasis upon not repeating things already described ‘very clearly’, the standard ancient interpretation of ἀριζήλως,4 had its effects in the rhetorical schools. Eustathius observes that Odysseus’ final words in Book 12 were ‘useful (χρήσιμος) for everyone who does not wish to repeat what has already been clearly stated’ (Hom. 1730.17). Odysseus’ strategies thus survived in the way that narrative practice was taught at a very basic level. It is not of course the opening verses of Book 9 alone which gave the impulse to the very rich ancient discussion of narrative τάξις, of ‘natural’ and ‘anastrophic’ narrative, and so forth,5 but these verses must be set against Odysseus’ similar address to Arete in Book 7: ἀργαλέον, βασίλεια, διηνεκέως ἀγορεῦσαι, κήδε’ ἐπεί μοι πολλὰ δόσαν θεοὶ Οὐρανίωνες· τοῦτο δέ τοι ἐρέω, ὅ μ’ ἀνείρεαι ἠδὲ μεταλλᾶις. It is difficult, Queen, to tell in full: many are the troubles which the gods of heaven have given me. But I shall tell you this, what it is you enquire and ask of me. (Od. 7.241–3) Odysseus proceeds (famously) to answer the queen’s second and third questions, leaving the issue of his name to slip from sight, but as 7.242 is identical to 9.15, it is very hard not to see 7.241 and 9.14 as addressing the same issue, if not in fact pointed variations of each other, and also very hard not to think that that would have been a conclusion drawn in antiquity. Here is not the place for yet another discussion of διηνεκέως and related words in ancient theory and practice,6 though these passages spoken by Odysseus clearly did play an important role in shaping ancient ideas of narrative. Dionysius of Halicarnassus was not alone in criticising Thucydides’ loss of τὸ διηνεκές by ­choosing   3 Cf. Nünlist 2009: 198 n. 15. Empedocles fr. 25 D-K, ‘it is a fair thing to say twice what is necessary’, may have looked directly to Odysseus’ words; for those in the audience who remembered the Homeric Odysseus’ words, Neoptolemus’ question to him at Sophocles, Philoctetes 1238 (δὶς ταὐτὰ βούλῃ καὶ τρὶς ἀναπολεῖν μ᾽ ἔπη;) will have carried a particular charge.  4 Cf. LfgrE s.v.   5 Cf. Hunter 2009: 52–5, citing earlier bibliography.   6 For some discussion and bibliography cf. Harder 2012: 2.20–1.

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to narrate by summers and winters (Thucydides 9.4; cf. Theon 80.16–26 Sp.).7 In Theon’s classification, the Odyssey (or perhaps rather ‘Odysseus’ story’) belongs, like Thucydides’ Histories, to those texts which move ‘middle–beginning–end’ (86.10–19 Sp.), for the poem opens with Odysseus on Calypso’s island, and then what we call Books 9–12 provide the antecedent events to that, and then the poem continues in orderly, chronological sequence to the end. Theon does not say so, but Odysseus’ narrations to the Phaeacians thus both parallel and differ from Homer’s own narrations. In Book 7 we get a retelling of Calypso, the storm, Nausicaa etc.,8 so that we have had ‘the present situation’ long before the apologoi proper get under way in Book 9. As for the apologoi themselves, they do indeed proceed διηνεκέως, after Odysseus has implicitly answered Arete’s first question and revealed his name and where he comes from; that he will ‘begin at the beginning’ is clearly advertised by the repetition of Τροίηθεν ~ Ἰλιόθεν across 9.38–9. Odysseus manages in fact both to ‘begin at the beginning’, a practice which for example the exegetical scholia on Il. 11.671–761 deprecate as dull ‘in more extended narrations’, and to begin ἐκ τῶν πρακτικῶν as the same scholia recommend as ἡδύ. We might also note, however, that whereas it might seem obvious to us that this beginning hooks the narration not just to the third song of Demodocus in the previous book, the song of ‘Odysseus and the fall of Troy’, but also to what we call the Iliad, so that this passage might have been very important in the familiar ancient notion of the Odyssey as an ‘epilogue’ to the Iliad (‘Longinus’, On the Sublime 9.12),9 the point does not seem to have been made in antiquity. The question of ‘where to begin?’ never left ancient narratives and narrative theory. And rightly so, for very much was and is at stake; Genette’s ‘unavoidable difficulty of beginning’, the ‘Where do I begin?’ question, is not just a (very difficult) question of narrative sequence,   7 Cf. Hunter 2009: 55. It is worth noting that this chapter of Dionysius’ Thucydides both uses τὸ διηνεκές and describes the historian in a way which, to us, seems very ‘Callimachean’: ‘He wished to travel a road which was new and untrodden (ἀτριβής) by others’ (9.4). In the extant works Dionysius never mentions Callimachus’ poetry, only his scholarly views (cf. Hunter 2011: 233), but I wonder whether the ‘Reply to the Telchines’ does not lurk somewhere in the background of Dionysius’ criticisms of the difficulties which Thucydides put in the way of his readers. It is certainly much easier to assume that Dionysius knew the prologue to the Aitia than that he did not.   8 De Jong 2001: 184–6 offers a helpful account of Odysseus’ narration in Book 7, though she does not comment on διηνεκέως.   9 For the ancient testimonia cf. Bühler 1964: 46–7; Mazzucchi 1992 on ‘Longinus’ ad loc.

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‘where do i begin?’: an odyssean narrative strategy 141 though it is that too. Behind each ‘beginning’ always stands another explanatory narrative with the power to seep out and complicate, if not in fact undermine, the subsequent narrative. Ever since Homer, in other words for the western world ‘always’, the link between questions of ‘origins’ and issues of where literary accounts of ‘origins’, ‘histories’ in fact, begin has been almost indissoluble. Making choices about one almost always implies a choice about the other. It was of course Thucydides who famously thematised the issue of where something really begins, and who nudges us towards the realisation that ‘cause’ and ‘beginning’ are not (always) synonyms; this he does by his distinction (1.23.4–6) between when and how the war ‘began’, with – on the one hand - its aitiai and ‘differences’ between the sides which explain (ἐξ ὅτου) the war, and – on the other - the ‘truest prophasis’, which was growing Athenian power and the fear provoked by this in Sparta. If we return to Book 1 of the Iliad, we will see (because Homer makes us see) that whereas Achilles and Agamemnon quarrel over, and Achilles’ wrath can be traced to, Briseis, the truest prophasis of the quarrel and the wrath lies far deeper, in the nature of the two men and the system of values in which they find themselves embedded. At the beginning of Greek literature there is a problem of beginnings and causation, or – perhaps more important – a recognition that this is a problem.

One ancient narrator who has learned much from Homer’s Odysseus is Simaitha in Theocritus’ Second Idyll.10 Like Odysseus, she thematises the problem of ‘where to begin’: νῦν δὴ μώνα ἐοῖσα πόθεν τὸν ἔρωτα δακρύσω; ἐκ τίνος ἄρξωμαι; τίς μοι κακὸν ἄγαγε τοῦτο; 65 ἦνθ’ ἁ τωὐβούλοιο καναφόρος ἄμμιν Ἀναξώ ἄλσος ἐς Ἀρτέμιδος, τᾳ̂ δὴ τόκα πολλὰ μὲν ἄλλα θηρία πομπεύεσκε περισταδόν, ἐν δὲ λέαινα. φράζεό μευ τὸν ἔρωθ’ ὅθεν ἵκετο, πότνα Σελάνα. Now that I am alone,11 from what point shall I weep for my love? From what am I to begin? Who brought this evil upon me? Anaxo, Eubulus’ daughter, went as a basket-carrier to the 10 Cf. esp. Andrews 1996. 11 That the lover needs solitude in order to pour out his or her woes is a familiar trope of ancient poetry; we think especially of Callimachus’ Acontius (fr. 72 Pf. = 171 M) and his many Roman descendants, e.g., Propertius 1.18. The bT-scholium on Homer, Il. 1.349 (Achilles going to the seashore), notes that ‘Homer perfectly depicts (χαρακτηρίζει) the lover, for they seek empty places so that they might indulge their passion undisturbed by anyone.’

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grove of Artemis; many wild beasts were paraded that day for the goddess, including a lioness. ‘Observe, lady moon, from where my love came.’ (Theocritus 2.64–9) For Simaitha, ‘where to begin (my narration)?’ and ‘where did my love begin?’ are horribly and mutually implicated, but we have seen that this is in fact a very old problem. It is normally assumed (I think) that τίνος in 2.65 is neuter, and this is probably correct, but it might (also) be masculine/feminine,12 so that the two halves of 2.65 would then essentially be asking the same question; Simaitha is to prove very adept at shifting the blame to others, whether that be Anaxo, whose cultic role was the occasion of Simaitha’s fateful encounter, the Thracian nurse who ‘begged and pleaded’ with Simaitha to go to see the show (2.70–2),13 or, as we shall see, the servant Thestylis herself. On the other hand, the question of ‘where it began’ is stressed through the refrain, which again allows us to see the implication of narrative order and ‘cause’: 2.64 ‘from where (πόθεν) shall I lament my love?’ looks like a question about narrative order (which it is), but the refrain ‘observe from where (ὅθεν) my love came’ shows that more than narrative sequence is at stake here. Where it ‘began’ is in fact a complex question, as a protracted sequence, given particular emphasis by the refrain, is involved, and more than one answer apparently possible, depending in part on what sense one wants to give to ἔρως. One answer to the question is indeed offered by the pattern of the refrain, which occurs every five verses, almost always after strong punctuation (even while Delphis is speaking), although there is a powerful exception at 2.105 where the refrain divides Delphis’ entrance from Simaitha’s physical reaction to it, and I shall return in a moment to this passage. This pattern of repetition leads us therefore to expect a refrain after 2.140, but instead there is at that point a strongly enjambed description of sexual foreplay: καὶ ταχὺ χρὼς ἐπὶ χρωτὶ πεπαίνετο, καὶ τὰ πρόσωπα θερμότερ’ ἦς ἢ πρόσθε, καὶ ἐψιθυρίσδομες ἁδύ. Soon body grew warm on body,14 and our faces were hotter than before, and we whispered sweet things. (Theocritus 2.140–1) 12 Acosta-Hughes 2010: 18 makes a similar point. 13 ὡμάρτευν (2.73) continues the suggestion that it was the nurse, not Simaitha herself, who instigated the excursion. 14 Lentini 2012: 188–90 suggests that the verb πεπαίνετο brings with it negative associations from related ideas in Archilochus.

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‘where do i begin?’: an odyssean narrative strategy 143 ἔρως (‘making ἔρως’ in fact) has now arrived, and there is no further need for the refrain. Whether we are to understand that Simaitha’s memories of that afternoon are now so powerful that, all formal restraint abandoned, she quite forgets to put in the regular refrain is probably something upon which we can only speculate. Other answers to Simaitha’s question are also possible. Delphis, of course, is Simaitha’s ‘love’, and Simaitha’s first sight of him, and ours, might be thought to mark precisely ‘the coming of love’: ἤδη δ’ εὖσα μέσαν κατ’ ἀμαξιτόν, ᾳ῾̂ τὰ Λύκωνος, εἶδον Δέλφιν ὁμοῦ τε καὶ Εὐδάμιππον ἰόντας· τοῖς δ’ ἦς ξανθοτέρα μὲν ἑλιχρύσοιο γενειάς, στήθεα δὲ στίλβοντα πολὺ πλέον ἢ τύ, Σελάνα, ὡς ἀπὸ γυμνασίοιο καλὸν πόνον ἄρτι λιπόντων. 80 φράζεό μευ τὸν ἔρωθ’ ὅθεν ἵκετο, πότνα Σελάνα. χὠς ἴδον, ὣς ἐμάνην, ὥς μοι πυρὶ θυμὸς ἰάφθη δειλαίας, τὸ δὲ κάλλος ἐτάκετο. When I was already halfway along the path, where is Lycon’s, I saw Delphis, and with him Eudamippus, coming along. Their beards were more golden than helichryse, and their breasts gleamed far more brightly than you, Moon, as they had just left the fair work of the gymnasium. ‘Observe, lady moon, from where my love came’. I saw, I went mad, my poor heart was pierced by flame, and my beauty wasted away. (Theocritus 2.76–83)

Both the reworking of Sappho fr. 31 V15 and the echo of Il. 14.293–4 (the effect on Zeus of the arrival of Hera, in full possession of the powers of Aphrodite) show that the ‘burning disease’ of ἔρως has now arrived; we even know ‘from where’ ἔρως/Delphis has come, namely ‘from the gymnasium’. We have not yet, however, exhausted the potential answers to the question of the origin of Simaitha’s love. The answer to the question ‘Who brought this evil upon me?’ (2.65) is, quite literally, Thestylis (cf. 2.102 ἄγαγε τὸν λιπαρόχρων),16 and Delphis’ arrival at Simaitha’s house (2.103–10) might well be thought to be yet another ἀρχὴ ἔρωτος. 15 I discuss the Sapphic echoes in Theocritus 2, together with relevant bibliography, in Hunter forthcoming a. 16 Cf. Segal 1985: 105.

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This second reworking of Sappho fr. 31 V puts Simaitha’s two Sapphic moments in counterpoise and suggests that both are originary moments of ἔρως: Simaitha knows what this Sapphic poem designates, and uses it to punctuate her story. It is not just τάξις, both as the order in which one tells things and the relation between that order and the order in which events actually occurred, which Odysseus’ narration puts on the narratological agenda. He announces the subject of the narration which he begins in Book 9 as νόστον ἐμὸν πολυκηδέα (9.37), but it is the κήδεα and the κακά which have already been repeatedly stressed (7.212–14, 242, 9.12–13). First-person narration is almost necessarily a tale of woe, as Glenn Most argued in a well-known discussion of Achilles Tatius,17 but there are (again) interesting survivals of relevant ancient discussion. The scholia on Od. 9.12 and 14 note that this stress on his ‘troubles’ creates ‘anticipation’ in the listeners, just as the exegetical scholia on the opening of the Iliad tell us that οἱ περὶ Ζηνόδοτον offered as one solution to the famous ζήτημα of why Homer began from such an ill-omened word as μῆνις that this would ‘rouse the hearers’ minds and make them more attentive’ (bT-scholia on 1.1b);18 this explanation also appears, though without the reference to Zenodotus, in the A and D scholia. It is, however, on another scholium on Il. 1.1 that I wish to dwell for a moment. Another answer to this ζήτημα which is shared by the A and D scholia connects this opening with our psychological well-being; I quote part of the relevant A-scholium: διὰ δύο ταῦτα, πρῶτον μέν, ἵν’ ἐκ τοῦ πάθους ἀποκαταρρεύσῃ τὸ τοιοῦτο μόριον τῆς ψυχῆς καὶ προσεκτικωτέρους τοὺς ἀκροατὰς ἐπὶ τοῦ μεγέθους ποιήσῃ καὶ προεθίσῃ φέρειν γενναίως ἡμᾶς τὰ πάθη, μέλλων πολέμους ἀπαγγέλλειν· δεύτερον δέ, ἵνα τὰ ἐγκώμια τῶν Ἑλλήνων πιθανώτερα ποιήσῃ. . . . ἤρξατο μὲν ἀπὸ μήνιδος, ἐπείπερ αὕτη τοῖς πρακτικοῖς ὑπόθεσις γέγονεν· ἄλλως τε καὶ τραγῳδίαις τραγικὸν ἐξεῦρε προοίμιον· καὶ γὰρ προσεκτικοὺς ἡμᾶς ἡ τῶν ἀτυχημάτων διήγησις ἐργάζεται, καὶ ὡς ἄριστος ἰατρὸς πρῶτον ἀναστέλλων τὰ νοσήματα τῆς ψυχῆς ὕστερον τὴν ἴασιν ἐπάγει. Ἑλληνικὸν δὲ τὸ πρὸς τέλει τὰς ἡδονὰς ἐπάγειν. [Homer begins with μῆνις] for two reasons, first so that the relevant part of the soul might flow clear (ἀποκαταρρεύσῃ) of this passion and so that he could make his listeners more attentive to 17 Most 1989; for some qualifications to Most’s discussion cf. Repath 2005. 18 Cf. Nünlist 2009: 137–8.

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‘where do i begin?’: an odyssean narrative strategy 145 the scale and accustom us to bear sufferings nobly. Secondly, to make the encomia of the Greeks more persuasive . . . He began from wrath, since this was the subject of the events to be narrated. Moreover, for tragedies he found a tragic prooimion, The narration of misfortunes makes us attentive, and like an excellent doctor Homer first stirs up the diseases of the soul and then applies the remedy;19 bringing on pleasure at the end is characteristically Greek. (A-scholium, Il. 1.1)

There is much here which resonates with ancient rhetorical teaching on the function of prooemia,20 but two related aspects draw attention to themselves in the present context. The translation and interpretation of the first sentence pose difficulties, but one thing at least is clear, and becomes even clearer when we note that the D-scholia read ἀποκαθαρεύσῃ for ἀποκαταρρεύσῃ. We have in this scholium, as has been recognised,21 an echo at an unknown number of removes of the Aristotelian theory of katharsis, understood as a medical process in which emotional disturbances are aroused in order to be cleansed away. The Homeric scholia are very fond of asserting what is ‘Greek’ and what ‘barbarian’, words which can sometimes seem little more than general terms of approbation and disapprobation, but the claim that a particular structuring of narrative is ‘Greek’ is of considerable interest. Of course, one could argue about just what kind of ‘final pleasures’ the Iliad itself actually brings (cf. especially bT-scholia on 24.776), but the scholia on 1.1 are presumably at one level assuring us that, however grim the consequences of Achilles’ wrath may be, things will turn out well for the Greeks in the end;22 more generally, however, we are not too far from ideas of ‘the happy end’, which Aristotle famously associated with the ‘pleasure’ appropriate to comedy (Poetics 1453a35–7). Glenn Most noted that ‘a Greek erotic romance without a happy ending is not a Greek erotic romance’,23 and we ought to wonder how much emphasis should be given to the word ‘Greek’ in that sentence. A sub-Aristotelian reading of the Odyssey would certainly be pos19 For this image cf. Nünlist 2009: 143. 20 Cf., e.g., Anon. Seg. 5 Dilts-Kennedy: ‘A prooemion is defined as a speech which stirs or calms (κινητικὸς ἢ θεραπευτικός) the hearer’s passions.’ Prooemia are, of course, also crucially concerned with making the hearers attentive. 21 Cf., e.g., N. J. Richardson 1980: 274. 22 I am grateful to Ruth Scodel for focusing my attention on this explanation. We might also consider whether the scholia imply that ‘barbarians’ are given over entirely to pleasure, whereas the pattern of light emerging from darkness is a ‘Greek’ one. 23 Most 1989: 118.

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sible (we might even wish to associate the ‘pleasures at the end’ in the Iliad scholium cited above with the Alexandrian τέλος (or πέρας) of the Odyssey at 23.296), but it is another text to which I would like to draw attention in this connection. One of the most famous passages in the Greek novels is Chariton’s declaration at the head of his last book: νομίζω δὲ καὶ τὸ τελευταῖον τοῦτο σύγγραμμα τοῖς ἀναγινώσκουσιν ἥδιστον γενήσεσθαι· καθάρσιον γάρ ἐστι τῶν ἐν τοῖς πρώτοις σκυθρωπῶν. οὐκέτι λῃστεία καὶ δουλεία καὶ δίκη καὶ μάχη καὶ ἀποκαρτέρησις καὶ πόλεμος καὶ ἅλωσις, ἀλλὰ ἔρωτες δίκαιοι ἐν τούτῳ νόμιμοι γάμοι. And I think that this book will be the sweetest for my readers, for it cleans away the grim events of the earlier books. No longer will there be piracy and slavery and law-cases and battles and suicide and war and capturing, but honourable love and lawful marriage. (Chariton, Callirhoe 8.1.4) This passage and its relation to Aristotelian katharsis has been very much discussed, most recently and in greatest depth by Stefan Tilg,24 though it has not, to my knowledge, been brought together with the scholarship on the opening of the Iliad which is visible in the scholium to 1.1 (above). It is hard to believe on general grounds, however, that Chariton was not familiar with the kind of learning on show in these Homeric scholia, and in any case he very obviously fashions his novel as a new ‘Homer’ (however we wish to define the relationship) and, moreover, he too is fond of asserting what is ‘Greek’ and what ‘barbarian’. I suggest, then, that, however we understand this claim at the head of Book 8, Chariton has here adapted a scholastic observation about the emotional and narrative structure of the Iliad, one associated with the opening of the poem, and placed it rather at the head of his last book. It is Homeric literary virtues that he is (again) here claiming for his work; Chariton’s creation of a ‘prose epic’ uses not just Homer, but also the Homeric critical tradition, even if less elaborately than Heliodorus was to do. In narrative technique, as in so much else, it was of course the ancient novel which most self-consciously presented itself as the heir to the heritage of the Odyssey, and it is indeed Heliodorus’ Aethiopica which takes pride of place. Heliodorus’ most famous narrator is the wise Egyptian Calasiris, and he certainly has picked up the lesson of 24 Cf. Tilg 2010: 130–7; Whitmarsh 2011: 182–3. Heath 2011: 107 is ‘not convinced that καθάρσιον in [Chariton] 8.1.4 is an Aristotelian allusion’.

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Odysseus and his commentators that promise of a narrative of woe will make the audience attentive and keen to listen. When Cnemon first meets him by the banks of the Nile and asks him why, though an Egyptian, he is wearing Greek dress, the first word of Calasiris’ reply is enough to ensnare his listener: δυστυχήματα . . . (2.21.4); we will not be surprised when Cnemon then immediately asks ‘to learn’ what Calasiris’ συμφοραί have been, and Calasiris instantly launches into full Odyssean mode, Ἰλιόθεν με φέρεις κτλ, ‘you are carrying me from Troy’ (cf. Od. 9.39). Much has been written about Calasiris’ mode of narration and its contrast with that of Cnemon,25 but there is perhaps more to be teased out about Calasiris’ self-construction as a ‘Homeric’ character (in more than one sense) and narrator, and this will be my final example of the afterlife of Odyssean narrative practice. As is well understood, Calasiris’ first meeting with Cnemon pointedly replays and varies Cnemon’s earlier introduction of himself to Charicleia and Theagenes; for ease of reference I set the two passages out: “εἰ δέ μοι μέλει τῶν ὑμετέρων οὐκ ἄξιον ὑμῖν θαυμάζειν, τύχης τε γάρ μοι τῆς αὐτῆς ἐοίκατε κοινωνεῖν καὶ ἅμα Ἕλληνας ὄντας οἰκτείρω καὶ αὐτὸς Ἕλλην γεγονώς.” “Ἕλλην; ὦ θεοί” ἐπεβόησαν ὑφ’ ἡδονῆς ἅμα οἱ ξένοι. “Ἕλλην ὡς ἀληθῶς τὸ γένος καὶ τὴν φωνήν· τάχα τις ἔσται τῶν κακῶν ἀνάπνευσις.” “ἀλλὰ τίνα σε χρὴ καλεῖν;” ἔφη ὁ Θεαγένης. ὁ δὲ “Κνήμωνα.” “πόθεν δὲ γνωρίζειν;” “Ἀθηναῖον.” “τύχῃ τίνι κεχρημένον;” “Παῦε” ἔφη· “τί ταῦτα κινεῖς κἀναμοχλεύεις; τοῦτο δὴ τὸ τῶν τραγῳδῶν. οὐκ ἐν καιρῷ γένοιτ’ ἂν ἐπεισόδιον ὑμῖν τῶν ὑμετέρων τἀμὰ ἐπεισφέρειν κακά· καὶ ἅμα οὐδ’ ἂν ἐπαρκέσειε τὸ λειπόμενον πρὸς τὸ διήγημα τῆς νυκτὸς ὕπνου καὶ ταῦτα δεομένοις ὑμῖν ἀπὸ πολλῶν τῶν πόνων καὶ ἀναπαύσεως.” ‘You should not be amazed at the fact that I am concerned for you, for you seem to share the same misfortune as myself and, since you are Greeks, I pity you as I myself was born a Greek.’ ‘A Greek! O gods!’ shouted the strangers in joy. ‘Truly a Greek in race and voice! Perhaps there will be some break from our troubles.’ ‘What is your name?’ asked Theagenes. ‘Cnemon’ said the other. ‘And where do you come from?’ ‘I am Athenian.’ ‘What is your story?’ ‘Stop!’ he said, ‘Why do you stir up and unbolt these things?, as the tragedians say [cf. Eur. Med. 1317]. This is not the time to bring on my misfortunes as a new scene for your own. Besides, what is left of the night would not be enough for this 25 Cf. esp. Winkler 1982 (a seminal article); Hunter 1998b (citing earlier bibliography).

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narration, particularly when you need sleep and rest after your many sufferings.’ (Heliodorus, Aethiopica 1.8.6–7) ὁ Κνήμων . . . κατὰ πρόσωπον ὑπαντιάσας πρῶτα μὲν χαίρειν ἐκέλευε. τοῦ δὲ οὐ δύνασθαι φήσαντος, ἐπειδὴ μὴ οὕτω συμβαίνειν αὐτῳ̂ παρὰ τῆς τύχης, θαυμάσας ὁ Κνήμων “Ἕλλην δὲ” εἶπεν “ὁ ξένος;” “οὐχ Ἕλλην” εἶπεν “ἀλλ’ ἐντεῦθεν Αἰγύπτιος.” “πόθεν οὖν ἑλληνίζεις τὴν στολήν;” “δυστυχήματα” ἔφη “τὸ λαμπρόν με τοῦτο σχῆμα μετημφίασε.” τοῦ δὲ Κνήμωνος εἰ φαιδρύνεταί τις ἐπὶ συμφοραῖς θαυμάζοντος καὶ ταύτας μαθεῖν ἀξιοῦντος “Ἰλιόθεν με φέρεις” ἀπεκρίνατο ὁ πρεσβύτης “καὶ σμῆνος κακῶν καὶ τὸν ἐκ τούτων βόμβον ἄπειρον ἐπὶ σεαυτὸν κινεῖς. ἀλλὰ ποῖ δὴ πορεύῃ καὶ πόθεν, ὦ νεανία; πῶς δὲ τὴν φωνὴν Ἕλλην ἐν Αἰγύπτῳ;” “γελοῖον” ἔφη ὁ Κνήμων· “τῶν γὰρ κατὰ σεαυτὸν οὐδὲν ἐκδιδάξας, πρότερος καὶ ταῦτα ἐρωτηθείς, τῶν ἐμῶν γνῶσιν ἐπιζητεῖς.” Cnemon . . . stood facing [the mysterious old man] and first of all bade him good day. When the other said that he could not have a good day, since this was not what fate had allotted him, Cnemon was amazed and said, ‘The stranger is a Greek!’ ‘Not a Greek,’ he replied, ‘but an Egyptian from hereabouts.’ ‘Why then is your dress Greek?’ ‘Misfortunes have given me this bright change of clothing’ was the reply. Cnemon was amazed that anyone would dress brightly as a result of disasters and asked to learn about them. ‘You are carrying me from Troy’ answered the old man [cf. Od. 9.39], ‘and you are stirring up for yourself a swarm of ills and an endless buzzing from them. But where are you heading and where do you come from, young man? Why is a Greek-speaker in Egypt?’ ‘This is absurd’ replied Cnemon. ‘You have given me no information about your own story, though I indeed asked you first, and you want information about mine!’ (Heliodorus, Aethiopica 2.21.3–5) Alongside the obvious similarities, the most striking difference is that whereas Cnemon moves in the world of Attic drama (cf. also 2.23.5) and sees his story as a ‘tragedy’ – indeed he carries suitable citations around with him – Calasiris presents himself from the beginning as an epic character, namely Odysseus.26 These are, of course, not by any means absolutely exclusive positions: thus, for example, Cnemon’s subsequent attempt (real or half-hearted?) to defer his narration by pleading the need for sleep clearly evokes Odysseus’ words to 26 Cf., e.g., Paulsen 1992: 142–50; Elmer 2008: 414–18. Montiglio 2013: 148–52 sees the contrast rather as one between comedy (Cnemon) and epic-tragedy (Calasiris).

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Alcinous at Od. 11.377–85. Moreover, what most holds these two passages together is the power of story. Cnemon claims that Charicleia and Theagenes need ἀπὸ πολλῶν τῶν πόνων . . . ἀνάπαυσις, whereas what they want is the virtually synonymous τῶν κακῶν ἀνάπνευσις; it is not sleep, but stories which hold out the hope for both kinds of relief, as is made immediately clear when the narrator tells us that Charicleia and Theagenes thought that ‘listening to a story like their own would be the greatest consolation’ (1.8.9).27 As for Calasiris, his opening Odyssean move is followed by a not untypical (as we come to learn) piece of one-upmanship: he picks up a verb, κινεῖς, from the verse of Euripides’ Medea which Cnemon had cited in the earlier scene (although, of course, ‘in reality’ Calasiris did not hear Cnemon speak) and goes one better with his extended insect metaphor, σμῆνος . . . βόμβον ἄπειρον, which seems to amplify and ‘exhaust’ a metaphor already familiar in the narrative tradition (cf. Ach. Tat. 1.2.2). Calasiris, like Odysseus, is indeed a highly competitive narrator. These scenes in Book 2 have recently been enlighteningly discussed by Tim Whitmarsh,28 so I will focus merely on what seems relevant to the present discussion. With an elegant reworking of the locus amoenus of Plato’s Phaedrus,29 Calasiris leads Cnemon off to Nausicles’ house, where their host’s daughter plays the Nausicaa role to perfection (2.22.1–2). When Cnemon enquires about Nausicles, Calasiris describes him as a man resembling both himself and Odysseus: “οὐκ εἰς Διός” ἔφη, “ἀλλ’ εἰς ἀνδρὸς Δία τὸν ξένιον καὶ ἱκέσιον ἀκριβοῦντος. βίος γάρ, ὦ παῖ, κἀκείνῳ πλάνος καὶ ἔμπορος καὶ πολλαὶ μὲν πόλεις πολλῶν δὲ ἀνθρώπων ἤθη τε καὶ νοῦς εἰς πεῖραν ἥκουσιν ὅθεν, ὡς τὸ εἰκός, ἄλλους τε κἀμὲ οὐ πρὸ πολλῶν τῶνδε ἡμερῶν ἀλύοντα καὶ πλανώμενον ὁμωρόφιον ἐποιήσατο.” ‘It is not to Zeus’ house [that we are coming],’ he said ‘but to the house of a man who is very careful about Zeus, the protector of guests and suppliants. His life too, my child, is one of wandering and trade, and he has experience of many cities and the customs and minds of many men; this is probably the reason why he has received others also into his house and not many days ago he took me in when I was wandering in despair.’ (Heliodorus, Aethiopica 2.22.3) 27 The hope is not, in fact, really fulfilled; cf. 5.33.4 with Hunter 1998b: 42. 28 Whitmarsh 2011: 232–8. 29 Cf. Hunter 2012: 13–14.

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A very obvious reworking of the opening of the Odyssey30 elegantly projects on to Nausicles what is, more importantly, Calasiris’ ­self-image, but this passage may also introduce us to one of the most striking features of Calasiris’ Odyssean persona. Not only is he himself fashioned after the epic hero, but he has also fully internalised Homeric lore and scholarship. Just as he is able later to expound Homer’s Egyptian origin and the etymology of his name, along with sundry Homeric verses, here too it is tempting to think that his rewriting of the Odyssean verses allows both famous variant readings in Od. 1.3, νόον and the Zenodotean νόμον, to resonate alongside πόλεις, which appears in place of the Homeric ἄστεα; both the elegance and the scholarship were, however, probably lost on Cnemon. Something similar happens almost immediately after at 2.22.5. Calasiris defers his narration (again) by appealing to the needs of the stomach, ‘which Homer wonderfully (θαυμασίως) called cursed (οὐλομένη)’. The Homeric passages in question are Od. 15.344 and 17.286–7, but the really important ‘belly passage’ is of course 7.215–21, where Odysseus defers telling of his κακά because he has to eat, but where the stomach is not in fact called οὐλομένη; like the good scholar, Calasiris groups parallel passages together and uses them to expound each other. Moreover, the adjective of approbation that he uses for Homer, θαυμασίως, is one very familiar from the scholia31 and from Eustathius’ commentaries; this is Calasiris in full scholarly mode. In the scene which follows, Calasiris resumes his Odyssean character: weeping (2.23.1), deferring narration (2.23.6, ‘I’ll tell you, but . . . how I wish the excellent Nausicles were here: so often he has begged me to be initiated into my story but I have put him off with various excuses’).32 After Calasiris has explained something of Nausicles’ current preoccupations, Cnemon will take no more and after another image drawn from the theatre (2.24.4) insists that Calasiris now tell his story:33 “εὕρηκα γάρ σε κατὰ τὸν Πρωτέα τὸν Φάριον, οὐ κατ’ αὐτὸν τρεπόμενον εἰς ψευδομένην καὶ ῥέουσαν ὄψιν ἀλλά με παραφέρειν πειρώμενον.” “μανθάνοις ἄν” ἔφη ὁ πρεσβύτης· “διηγήσομαι δέ σοι τἀμαυτοῦ πρότερον ἐπιτεμών, οὐ σοφιστεύων ὡς αὐτὸς οἴει τὴν ἀφήγησιν ἀλλ’ εὔτακτόν σοι καὶ προσεχῆ τῶν ἑξῆς παρασκευάζων τὴν ἀκρόασιν.” 30 Noted by, e.g., Elmer 2008: 414. 31 Cf. e.g., the exegetical scholia on Il. 4.302, 7.128a, 8.385, 9.134b etc.; Nünlist 2009: 145. 32 Nausicles here is cast as an Alcinous, appropriately enough for a man whose daughter has just played the role of a ‘Nausicaa’. 33 On the theatrical language of 2.24.4 cf. Telò 1999: 82–5.

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‘where do i begin?’: an odyssean narrative strategy 151 ‘You [i.e. Calasiris] are like Proteus of Pharos, not that like him you turn into a deceptive and fluid vision, but because you try to lead me off the path.’ ‘You will learn the story’, said the old man. ‘First, however, I will give you a brief account of myself, not playing the sophist with the story, as you believe, but offering you an account which shows good order and is connected to what follows.’34 (Heliodorus, Aethiopica 2.24.4–5)

Cnemon’s comparison of Calasiris to Proteus is, at one level, an acknowledgement that Cnemon is here playing the role of Menelaus in Odyssey 4, always an Odysseus-light. His claim that Calasiris seeks ‘to lead him off the path’ (παραφέρειν) must in fact, not merely be part of Calasiris’ ‘wandering’ mode of speech, discussed by Tim Whitmarsh, but specifically be an echo of Menelaus’ remonstrance to Proteus, when the old trickster has asked him who helped him and what he wants: οἶσθα, γέρον· τί με ταῦτα παρατροπέων ἐρεείνεις; You know this, old man. Why do you ask me this to turn me off the track? (Od. 4.465) παρατροπέων is a Homeric hapax; one of Eustathius’ glosses on it, παραπλανῶν (Hom. 1505.31), is a clear synonym of Cnemon’s παραφέρειν. Moreover, Cnemon’s statement also suggests the link between the ‘turnings’ of metamorphosis and the turnings of speech which mark Calasiris (yet again) as an Odysseus: ψευδομένην and ῥέουσαν are of course pointed references to Calasiris’ slipperiness, and to the fact that one of the sea-god’s transformations in the Odyssey is into ὑγρὸν ὕδωρ (4.458), but they are also words which are readily applied to speech. Cnemon’s comparison of Calasiris to Proteus finds a striking parallel in Socrates’ reproof to Ion at the end of Plato’s work named after the rhapsode: there Socrates accuses Ion of ‘turning this way and that, like the ever-changing (παντοδαπός) Proteus, until finally you escape me’ (Plato, Ion 541e). The use of a Homeric character is very appropriate for Ion the rhapsode, but the Proteus analogy may have had quite wide currency in poetic and rhetorical discussion of the late fifth and

34 The final phrase has been variously understood, but the meaning seems to be as translated; it is, I think, misrepresented by Whitmarsh 2011: 235.

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early fourth century. In particular, it has been noted35 that Cnemon’s comparison may be connected to Socrates’ description of the brother sophists in the Euthydemus: “ἀλλ’ οὐκ ἐθέλετον ἡμῖν ἐπιδείξασθαι σπουδάζοντε, ἀλλὰ τὸν Πρωτέα μιμεῖσθον τὸν Αἰγύπτιον σοφιστὴν γοητεύοντε ἡμᾶς. ἡμεῖς οὖν τὸν Μενέλαον μιμώμεθα, καὶ μὴ ἀφιώμεθα τοῖν ἀνδροῖν ἕως ἂν ἡμῖν ἐκφανῆτον ἐφ’ ῳ῾̂ αὐτὼ σπουδάζετον·” ‘They do not want to give us a demonstration of their seriousness, but they imitate the Egyptian sophist Proteus and seek to bamboozle us. Therefore let us imitate Menelaus and not let these men go until they reveal to us what it is that they are serious about.’ (Plato, Euthydemus 288b7–c2) Some connection between the two passages is indeed likely, but it is important to try to be as specific as possible about this: would we in fact connect the two passages, rather than, say, Heliodorus 2.24.4–5 and Ion 541e, if it were not for Calasiris’ σοφιστεύων? Perhaps. Cnemon means that Calasiris keeps slipping away and ‘deviating’ from the story he has been asked to tell, just as Plato’s sophists, like Ion, will never properly confront Socrates’ questions;36 ‘Proteus of Pharos’ in Cnemon’s accusation could be a variation of ‘the Egyptian sophist Proteus’, but it hardly demands to be read as such. If there is a Platonic background to Cnemon’s question, we might well have been tempted to seek it rather in the discussion in Republic 2 of why stories of shape-changing gods such as Proteus are not to be admitted into the ideal city (380d–3c). Such a god, a nightmarish concept for a Plato, would be a γόης, who deceives and falsifies (ψεύδεσθαι, 382a–c); ὄψις in Cnemon’s question might pick up φαντάζεσθαι (380d2) and φάντασμα (382a2) in the discussion in the Republic, and we can see from the scholia on Od. 4.456 that the view that Proteus did not really turn into animals, fire, water etc., but that these were φαντασίαι, became in fact standard grammatical lore.37 It seems likely, then, that Calasiris, ever the competitive narrator, tops Cnemon’s explicit allusion to the Homeric Proteus with a glance at another classical text which used this figure (the Euthydemus), but does nothing so vulgar as give the allusion away straightforwardly; ‘as you believe’ is (again) an elegant way of including the unknowing Cnemon in the sophistication of his banter. 35 Cf., e.g., Paulsen 1992: 149–50. 36 Cf. Hopkinson 1994: 10–11. 37 Cf. also Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Demosthenes 8.2 cited below.

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There is here a further dimension also, of course. Cnemon’s language of the ‘turning’ Proteus reminds us that the Odyssean epithet par excellence πολύτροπος is applied to Proteus himself in the proem of Nonnus’ Dionysiaca (1.14); the scholia on Od. 4.456 which describe Proteus show how easy the connection is: τρέπεται εἰς πολλά . . . καὶ δι᾽ ἄλλων ποικίλων τρόπων. Eustathius tells us that the name ‘Proteus’ is applied to πολύτροποι καὶ κακοήθεις πολυειδῶς ἄνθρωποι (Hom. 1503.36–7), and the connection between Proteus and linguistic facility and ‘fluidity of speech’ seems clear enough.38 We would dearly like to know more of the ‘On Proteus’ of Antisthenes, whose famous discussion of πολύτροπος associates that word with the tropes of language.39 So too, the contrast which Hippias draws in the Platonic Hippias Minor between the ἁπλοῦς Achilles and the πολύτροπος Odysseus comes very close to the language of the discussion of shape-changing gods in the Republic. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, moreover, compares Demosthenes’ achievement in building his style from all the opposed possibilities of style to the shiftings of Proteus: . . . οὐδὲν διαλλάττουσαν τοῦ μεμυθευμένου παρὰ τοῖς ἀρχαίοις ποιηταῖς Πρωτέως, ὃς ἅπασαν ἰδέαν μορφῆς ἀμογητὶ μετελάμβανεν, εἴτε θεὸς ἢ δαίμων τις ἐκεῖνος ἄρα ἦν παρακρουόμενος ὄψεις τὰς ἀνθρωπίνας εἴτε διαλέκτου ποικίλον τι χρῆμα ἐν ἀνδρὶ σοφῳ̂, πάσης ἀπατηλὸν ἀκοῆς, ὃ μᾶλλον ἄν τις εἰκάσειεν, ἐπειδὴ ταπεινὰς καὶ ἀσχήμονας ὄψεις οὔτε θεοῖς οὔτε δαίμοσι προσάπτειν ὅσιον. [Demosthenes’] style is no different from Proteus in the myths of the old poets, who easily assumed every kind of shape, whether he was a god or a daimōn, able to deceive men’s vision, or some shifting marvel of language in a clever man, able to deceive every ear. This last is the most probable, as it is impious to attribute mean and ugly appearances to gods or daimones. (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Demosthenes 8.2) For much of Greek tradition διαλέκτου ποικίλον τι χρῆμα ἐν ἀνδρὶ σοφῳ̂ would evoke Odysseus before it evoked anyone else. In calling Calasiris a Proteus, then, Cnemon reinforces (unknowingly) the presentation and self-presentation of the Egyptian wise man as an Odysseus figure.40 38 Cf., e.g., Buffière 1956: 353. 39 N. J. Richardson 1975: 80 attractively suggests that Antisthenes had indeed compared Odysseus and Proteus. 40 At Max. Tyr. 1.1 Proteus is described as πολύμορφός τις καὶ παντοδαπὸς τἠν φύσιν (cf. Plato, Ion 541 e above), and Odysseus is also there not far away, cf. Montiglio 2011: 117–19.

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The association between Proteus and Odysseus is one fashioned after the Odyssey itself, for in that poem Proteus’ nearest analogue is Teiresias, whom Odysseus consults in the underworld, with Menelaus playing the Odysseus role in Book 4. We have, however, already seen how Calasiris incorporates ‘the Homeric interpretative tradition’ as well as being a ‘Homeric’ character himself, and this exchange with Cnemon, whatever role Plato plays within it, fits this pattern. If the comparison to Proteus plays to Calasiris as Odysseus, his paraded concern to offer ‘an account which shows good order (εὔτακτον) and is connected to what follows (προσεχῆ τῶν ἑξῆς)’ is indeed, as Winkler calls it, a ‘pose’,41 but it is the pose of the scholar, passing judgement on narrative structure. The concern of, say, Dionysius of Halicarnassus and the scholiasts with narrative τάξις is, as I have already noted, one of the most familiar themes of ancient criticism. Eustathius, for whom εὔτακτον is a favourite form of approbation, observes in his note on Od. 9.37, the start of Odysseus’ narration: κατὰ φύσιν τάττει τὰ πράγματα· καὶ εὐτάκτως προιὼν φησὶν κτλ, ‘he arranges the events in their natural order; proceeding in an orderly sequence, he says . . . ’. Calasiris will, then tell his story, both as Homer’s Odysseus and as the Odysseus of the critical tradition; or will he? Finally, the temptation here to see the author of the Aethiopica gently reminding us of his constant presence is, I think, hard to resist; his character’s concern with narrative order and persistent evocation of the Odyssey, itself the model for the ordering of the Aethiopica, must pick up the ‘special relationship’ which antiquity saw between Odysseus and his creator. It is not just that when, at the end of Book 12, Odysseus tells Alcinous that he does not like to repeat himself, Eustathius observes that this is really Homer speaking to the listener to remind him that ‘what follows the events just narrated has already been told’ (Hom. 1730.15). Ancient readers saw a very special relationship of closeness or identity between Homer and Odysseus as narrators; Strabo’s account of Homer’s ‘untruths’ almost makes the point explicitly (1.2.9) and very similar traditions lie behind Horace in the Ars Poetica: semper ad euentum festinat et in medias res non secus ac notas auditorem rapit, et quae desperat tractata nitescere posse relinquit, atque ita mentitur, sic ueris falsa remiscet, primo ne medium, medio ne discrepet imum. 41 Winkler 1982: 145.

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‘where do i begin?’: an odyssean narrative strategy 155 Always he hastens to the outcome and carries his listener into the midst of events, as though they were known to him; he leaves aside what he thinks will not stand out when treated, and he lies in such a way, mixing falsehood with truth, that the middle is not discordant with the beginning, nor the end with the middle. (Horace, Ars Poetica 148–52)

Horace is describing Homer, but he might as well be describing Odysseus.42 Odysseus’ opening question, ‘What shall I tell first, what last?’, was of course Homer’s question as well.

42 V.151 indeed evokes the description of Odysseus at Od. 19.203 ἴσκε ψεύδεα πολλὰ λέγων ἐτύμοισιν ὁμοῖα; the point is curiously absent from Brink’s commentary.

8 SOME ANCIENT VIEWS ON NARRATIVE, ITS STRUCTURE AND WORKING René Nünlist ‘The second task required of a writer of an historical work (the first task being to select a suitable subject) is to decide where to begin and how far to go.’1 The fundamental questions of ‘where to begin’ and ‘where to end’ must be as old as literature itself. They automatically pose themselves to any would-be poet or author. Moreover, passages such as Od. 9.14 show that, from an early stage, poets openly addressed the questions ‘What then shall I recount first, what last?’ (albeit here in the voice of the character Odysseus at the beginning of his long narrative to the Phaeacians). In all likelihood these questions quickly became a literary topos (possibly before Homer), which in turn could playfully be modified by subsequent poets and authors (cf. Hunter, this volume). They thus prepared the ground for literary critics to treat the whole issue in their analyses. No doubt, they especially needed to address this issue because those compositions which were the earliest extant works and also the undisputed masterpieces of Greek literature, the Homeric epics, displayed a remarkable temporal structure and thus intrigued readers.2 At any rate, Aristotle expressly praises Homer for his decision not to treat the entire Trojan War in his Iliad: (1) That is why, as I said earlier, Homer’s inspired superiority over the rest can be seen here too: though the war had beginning and end, he did not try to treat its entirety, for the plot was bound  1 Dion. Hal. Pomp. 3.8 (trans. Usher). Whenever possible, published translations have been used in this chapter (Lattimore’s for Homer). The other translations are my own. In the case of scholia, elements that are tacitly understood have occasionally been added (in angled brackets). Their sole purpose is to help understand the quotation.  2 Contrast the (numerous) narratives which promise to tell the story ‘from the beginning’ (ἐξ ἀρχῆς): Hes. Th. 45, 115; Pl. Phd. 59c8; Lys. 1.5, 32.3; Isoc. 17.3; Dem. 34.5, 54.2; Men. fr. 129 K-A (ἀπ᾿ ἀρχῆς); etc.

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some ancient views on narrative 157 to be too large and incoherent, or else, if kept within moderate scope, too complex in its variety. Instead, he has selected one section, but has used many others as episodes, such as the catalogue of ships and other episodes by which he diversifies his composition. (Poetics 1459a30–7, trans. Halliwell)

The passage comes from chapter 23, in which Aristotle argues that the plot of epic poetry (i.e., the narrative genre) must follow essentially the same principles as the ones that he put forward for tragedy in chapter 7. A well-constructed plot must possess organic unity with natural beginning, middle and end; it ought to have narrative coherence, plausibility and appropriate magnitude. Unlike most of his fellow poets, Homer succeeds in constructing a narrative that is to Aristotle’s liking because he chooses to treat only one coherent part (ἓν μέρος) of the entire Trojan War. As often in the Poetics, the subject is dealt with in rather general terms without too much detail. For instance, Aristotle does not expressly state that the section chosen by Homer is located towards the end of the war, covers a comparatively short time span (fifty-one days) and incorporates the antecedents and the sequel by means of analepsis and prolepsis respectively. Nor does Aristotle explain en détail why the specific section chosen by Homer is particularly apt to produce the type of plot that he considers a model of its kind. I do not mean to criticise this laconism or speculate on what it might say implicitly.3 Instead I propose to have a look at other ancient sources which discuss similar questions and here and there fill the gaps left in Aristotle’s account. Among the first passages that come to mind is Horace’s winged word in medias res.4 Instead of ‘beginning at the beginning’ (ab ovo, 147; cf. Sat. 1.3.6), the poet hurries straight towards the actual outcome of his story (ad eventum festinat, 148) and thus carries the reader or listener   3 One such speculation is worth addressing. It has been argued that, in the final sentence of text 1, Aristotle means to say ‘daß die Episodentechnik ein Kunstgriff Homers sei, durch den trotz der Beschränkung der Handlung seines Epos auf eine übersichtliche Zeitperiode doch der gesamte Krieg dem Hörer vor Augen trete’ (Rengakos 2004: 289, with lit. 290 n. 38). Even if one accepts this interpretation of the difficult term ἐπεισόδιον, two problems, at least, remain. Aristotle’s focus in this passage is more on thematic unity than on temporal structure. What is more, the catalogue of ships (and similar passages such as the teichoskopia or the duel between Paris and Menelaus) are very peculiar because Homer does not mark them as instances of analepsis. The relevant scenes are presented as if they took place in the course of the fifty-one-day-period towards the end of the war, even though they ‘actually belong’ to its beginning. Aristotle would have chosen a curious example to illustrate Homer’s analeptic technique.  4 Hor. Ars P. 148; cf. Brink 1971: ad loc.; Meijering 1987: 146.

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along with him (auditorem rapit, 149). Since the second of Horace’s two negative examples, which function as rhetorical foil, mentions the poetic treatment of the Trojan War, it seems more than likely that Homer represents the positive model for him too. At any rate, this is the case for Quintilian (7.10.11), who expressly speaks of the ‘Homeric manner’ (mos Homericus) when he distinguishes between chronological and non-chronological narratives (under the standard rubric oeconomia, on which see below). If Quintilian describes the contrast to a beginning ab initiis by means of the alternative a mediis vel ultimis, one might first be tempted to understand this as a subtle correction of Horace. Held against the background of their respective story (in the sense of Genette’s histoire), both Homeric epics, as it were, begin ab ultimis, the Iliad in the tenth and final year of the war, the Odyssey thirty-nine days before Odysseus’ reunion with Penelope and twenty years after his departure.5 But Quintilian may well be thinking of a distinction that can be found in the progymnasmata of Theon (86.9– 87.12 Spengel), who discusses five possibilities for altering a narrative’s natural sequence (‘beginning–middle–end’).6 The first possibility is ‘middle–beginning–end’, which Theon expressly illustrates with the Odyssey (Hunter, this volume): Calypso stands for the middle, Odysseus’ Apologue with the Phaeacians is the beginning and the remainder of the Odyssey represents the end. More generally, four of Theon’s five possibilities start either in the middle or at the end, which may well be Quintilian’s point of reference, not least because Theon’s fifth variant, ‘beginning–end–middle’, seems less cogent than the other four and is perhaps due to his recurrent attempt to be exhaustive.7 The narrative structure of the Iliad receives detailed discussion in the Homeric scholia, for instance, a D-scholium on the opening line: (2) The immediate (or: first) question is: why did the poet begin his account with the final events (ἀπὸ τῶν τελευταίων) of the war? The answer is: because the entire period before the tenth year did not have such continuous battles, since the Trojans themselves, due to their fear of Achilles, were penned up within the walls. The tenth year contained more action and, with Achilles being   5 The first day-by-day analyses of the two epics go back to antiquity (for examples see Nünlist 2009: 69–74).   6 It goes without saying that Quintilian need not depend directly on Theon, which also helps avoid the difficulty of the latter’s date being disputed; cf. Heath 2003.  7 Interestingly, ‘middle–beginning–end’ (for beginning in the middle see also 74.17) is the only possibility that Theon exemplifies with entire texts (Odyssey, Thucydides). The second, ‘end–middle–beginning’, is illustrated with a paragraph from Herodotus (3.1). No examples are given for the remaining three.

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some ancient views on narrative 159 angry (i.e. not fighting), evenly balanced battles. In this too, the poet began in an economic way (οἰκονομικῶς) from the final events. By means of what he interspersed here and there (σποράδην), he also incorporated what happened before. For this is the virtue (ἀρετή) of poetry, to start in the middle (τὸ ἀπὸ τῶν μέσων ἄρξασθαι) and, as one moves on, also to narrate the beginning in detail (κατὰ μέρος). (schol. D Il. 1.1, p. 4 van Thiel) The scholium’s position is generally similar to the position of Horace or Theon, but it is more specific in that it gives an actual description of the analeptic technique which allows Homer to insert the antecedents. Essentially the same can be said about an exegetical scholium on the opening line, but the details display remarkable differences: (3) The question is: why did the poet begin from the final and not the first events? The answer is: because the former battles took place now and then and were not fought about the biggest cities. As long as Achilles was present, the Trojans did not exit through the gates, and the Greeks spent the nine years almost idly, sacking the minor cities in the neighbourhood. There was no need for him (sc. Homer) to write about these things, there not being a subjectmatter (ὕλη) for his account. They also say (λέγουσι δὲ καί) that it is a poetic virtue (ἀρετή) to touch upon the last events first and to narrate the rest from the beginning (ἀνέκαθεν, lit. from above). (schol. b Il. 1.1 ex.)

Despite differences in wording, the gist of the two scholia is more or less the same, with the first part of the answer being partially indebted to Thucydides’ argument that for a long time the Greeks did not focus on sacking Troy itself (1.11). In describing Homer’s narrative technique, both scholia agree that the poem’s non-chronological structure is a poetic ‘virtue’ (ἀρετή), which has the ring of a rhetorical handbook (e.g., Arist. Rhet. 1404b1–2: ‘virtue of style’). But the D-scholium (text 2) is superior both in detail and in accuracy. It mentions the general rubric under which narrative structure is normally discussed (οἰκονομικῶς).8 And it accurately describes Homer as inserting his analepses ‘here and there’ (σποράδην).9 Conversely, the exegetical scholium (text 3) hardly does justice to Homer’s technique when it says he narrates the rest ‘from the beginning’ (ἀνέκαθεν), that is,  8 On οἰκονομία see Nünlist 2009: 23–33 (with lit. in nn. 3 and 7).  9 Cf. Eust. Il. 7.29–31 παρενσπείρας ὧδε καὶ ἐκεῖ (‘inserting here and there’); for the agricultural metaphor see texts 7 and 9 below.

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chronologically and (presumably) in one go.10 A possible explanation of this ‘mistake’ is to assume that the final sentence was taken over from a different source that spoke about poetic narratives in general and not Homer’s narratives in particular, at least not that of the Iliad. The description works better for the Odyssey, as Theon’s rough analysis as ‘middle–beginning–end’ shows.11 The narrative structure of the Homeric epics with analepses and prolepses guarantees, among other things, that no essential part of the story is missing, as an exegetical scholium on the catalogue of ships underscores: (4) The poet is admirable: he omits no part of the story, but narrates all events at the appropriate moment in inverse order (ἐξ ἀναστροφῆς), the strife of the goddesses (i.e. the judgment of Paris), the rape of Helen, the death of Achilles.12 For chronological narrative (ἡ κατὰ τάξιν διήγησις) is typical of later (i.e. postHomeric) epic poets and of historians and lacks poetic grandeur. (schol. b Il. 2.494–877 ex., p. 288 Erbse) Even though the erzählte Zeit of the Iliad is a mere fifty-one days, it incorporates the story-elements that fall outside this time span but are essential to the story. The second sentence of the scholium elaborates on the point that narrative structure depends on generic factors. Chronological narratives are typical of historiography (and mediocre poetry13). A similar view of historiography forms the implicit backdrop against which Dionysius of Halicarnassus criticises Thucydides. Since he chooses to proceed by seasons and thus repeatedly jumps from one storyline to the other, Thucydides fails to produce the lucid 10 For narrating ἀνέκαθεν/ἄνωθεν cf. e.g. Pl. Leg. 781d9; Men. Epitr. 240; Polyb. 2.35.10; Plut. Thes. 19 (= Cleidemus FGrH 323 F 17) and texts 17–18 below. Other scholia on the opening line discuss the question as to why Homer began the Iliad with the ill-omened word ‘wrath’ (for an example see Hunter in this volume). 11 The hypothesis of a different source for the final sentence could find support in the opening words ‘they also say’ (λέγουσι δὲ καί). Erbse (1950: 8, based on Knauss 1910) has shown that, in Eustathius, the word φασί (‘they say’) regularly, if not always, indicates change of source. Cf. also Serv. Praef. (p. 4.20–5.4 ThiloHagen): ‘hanc esse artem poeticam, ut a mediis incipientes per narrationem prima reddamus . . . quod etiam Horatius sic praecepit in arte poetica [quotation of lines 43–4]. unde constat perite fecisse Vergilium.’ 12 The expression ‘in inverse order’ (ἐξ ἀναστροφῆς) must include here both types of ‘disturbed chronology’ (in Genette’s term, ‘anachrony’), analepsis and prolepsis, since the third example, Achilles’ death, obviously illustrates a prolepsis (Nünlist 2009: 89 n. 52). 13 The probable targets of this critique are the poets of the epic cycle, whom Pollianus (AP 11.130 = Cycl. test. 21 Bernabé) ridiculed as the ones who kept saying ‘and then’ (αὐτὰρ ἔπειτα).

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chronological narrative that Dionysius apparently expects from a historiographer (Thuc. 10–12). In a similar vein, Theon (83.15–84.5 Sp.) considers it typical of historiographers that they can generously extend (μηκύνειν) their narratives, whereas the others concentrate on the essentials.14 This contrast also means that historiographers alone can have their narratives begin in the remote past (πόρρωθεν ἄρχεσθαι). A very similar point recurs in Pseudo-Plutarch, who, in his detailed discussion of the Homeric οἰκονομία (Hom. 2.162), praises Homer for putting the beginning of the Iliad not ‘from afar’ (πόρρωθεν) but ‘at the time when the action had become more vibrant and climactic’ (καθ’ ὃν χρόνον αἱ πράξεις ἐνεργότεραι καὶ ἀκμαιότεραι κατέστησαν). The whole paragraph from De Homero aligns well with the two scholia quoted above (texts 2 and 3; cf. Hillgruber 1994–9: ad loc.), not least because it also mentions the incidental insertion of concise analepses (συντόμως ἐν ἄλλοις τόποις παραδιηγήσατο). On the other hand, Pseudo-Plutarch does not argue against the backdrop of chronological narrative. The one who does do so is Dio Chrysostom, who, however, gives the argument a peculiar twist in that for him non-chronological ­narrative is the hallmark of a liar: (5) For when Homer undertook to describe the war between the Achaeans and the Trojans, he did not start at the very beginning, but at haphazard; and this is the regular way with practically all who distort the truth; they entangle the story and make it involved and refuse to tell anything in sequence (ἐφεξῆς), thus escaping detection more readily. (Dio Chrys. Or. 11.24, trans. Cohoon) Scholars often assume that Dio’s critique of Homer is not meant too seriously (e.g., Hunter 2009: 61). This assumption may be right. It is, however, interesting to note that a similar rationale forms the background to the section in which Dionysius of Halicarnassus compares the orators Lysias and Isaeus. In writing his narratives, Lysias does not resort to ‘art’ (τέχνη) or ‘dishonesty’ (πονηρία) but writes in accordance with ‘nature’ (φύσις) and ‘truth’ (ἀλήθεια). Isaeus does the opposite. Everything is ‘artfully designed and contrived 14 Theon’s expressions for ‘the essentials’ are τὰ καιριώτατα τῶν πραγμάτων and τὰ εἰς τὸ πρᾶγμα συντελοῦντα μόνα, and the entire question is dealt with under the rubric συντομία. The notion that narratives in historiography are continuous and chronological is particularly clear in a passage that Patillon and Bolognesi were able to retrieve from the Armenian translation of Theon (inserted at 112.5 Sp. = p. 77 Patillon); cf. also the implication of Anon. Seg. 133 Patillon.

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to mislead (ἀπάτη), or for some other sinister purpose (κακουργία). Thus a mendacious client of Lysias might be believed, whereas a client of Isaeus, even if he speaks the truth, will not be heard without suspicion.’15 As the final sentence makes clear, Dionysius primarily speaks of the impression that the audience get, whether or not the speaker might be telling the truth. Elsewhere (Lys. 18) he argues that Lysias’ audience will have found it difficult to tell truth from fiction. For Homer’s famous description of Odysseus, ‘he knew how to say many false things that were like true sayings’ (Od. 19.203), can equally be applied to Lysias himself. The difference between Dionysius and Dio is that for the latter (at least when text 5 is taken at face value), a non-­chronological narrative actually exposes the liar, whereas for Dionysius this is only a possibility. With the exception of Dio, all the witnesses seen so far agree that the narrative structure of the Homeric epics is a merit. Why? Several sources above (texts 2–3, Pseudo-Plutarch) do not expressly address this question and simply take it for granted that it is a good thing. As to the others, for Aristotle the plot (μῦθος) and its structure are the single most important criterion whether or not the individual poet reaches the crucial goal of unity, for which Homer has set the perfect model. Horace appears to imply that a beginning in medias res is apt to catch the readers’ attention (according to ancient rhetorical theory a standard function of the proem) and carry them along. The underlying thought is spelled out in a note that comments on the longest secondary narrative of the entire Iliad, Nestor’s report to Patroclus about his exploit as a young man (11.671–761). The scholium reads: (6) The narrative is in inverse order (ἐξ ἀναστροφῆς).16 For in longer narratives to recount the story from beginning to end makes for rather dull reading (ἀμβλυτέραν τὴν ἀκρόασιν καθίστησιν). But to start with the real action (ἐκ τῶν πρακτικῶν ἄρχεσθαι) is pleasant (ἡδύ). (schol. bT Il. 11.671–761 ex.) This scholar not only spells out the implicit risk of boredom among readers, he also adds another factor by applying the rule primarily 15 Dion. Hal. Isae. 16 (trans. Usher); cf. Anon. Seg. 88 Patillon, where the ‘disturbed’ order is seen as a means to mislead (ἀπατᾶν) the judge. 16 This scholium confirms the view (n. 12) that ‘in inverse order’ can designate more complex departures from strict chronology than mere analepses. Nestor’s narrative displays a temporal complexity that is unparalleled in Homer’s primary narratives. The remainder of the long scholium (not quoted here) attempts to disentangle it by means of a chronological summary.

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some ancient views on narrative 163 to narratives that are longer (διηγήματα ἐπιμηκέστερα). He does not explain why long chronological narratives are at risk of being boring, but it is a fair guess that the problem is a surplus of information whose immediate relevance is not clear. It takes too long until one reaches the ‘real stuff’, so it is better to start with that. At any rate, the criterion ‘surplus of information’ occurs in other sources that are important for the topic under consideration. One is a note on the scene from Iliad 15, when Zeus wakes up from his amorous encounter with Hera. In his second speech to her (Il. 15.49–77) he gives a fairly detailed outline of the future events (Patroclus’ sortie and death at the hands of Hector, Achilles’ revenge, etc.). The Alexandrian critics did not like this actorial prolepsis and suspected its authenticity. Zenodotus, for example, excised lines 64 to 77. (7) Zenodotus omits from here (Il. 15.64) to ‘supplicating’ (Il. 15.77).17 For they are similar to a Euripidean prologue. However, the poet is exciting (or: full of suspense) and, if anything at all, puts only a seed (σπέρμα); cf. ‘this was the beginning of his (sc. Patroclus’) evil’ (Il. 11.604). The one who composed these lines (sc. Il. 15.64–77) is perhaps the same who composed ‘we went against Thebe’ (Il. 1.366ff., spoken by Achilles to Thetis) and ‘he (sc. Odysseus to Penelope) began how he first defeated the Ciconians’ (Od. 23.310ff.). (schol. T Il. 15.64c ex. (Did.?)) Leaving aside the thorny question of whose opinion is actually expressed in this note (Nickau 1977: 246–7), it is perhaps better, for the time being, to focus on the argument itself. The relevant lines from Zeus’ speech are considered spurious because they anticipate too much of what will subsequently be narrated. In this connection, the note draws a sharp line between Homer and Euripides. The latter frequently gives, in his prologues, a full outline of the subject-matter, which is not to this critic’s liking. Homer, on the other hand, makes use of the proleptic device much more sparingly. If he uses it at all, the most the readers will receive is a small hint (or seed). This is illustrated by means of the passage which, to this day, is a prime example of a Homeric prolepsis in secondary literature: the line from Iliad 11 which announces Patroclus’ doom, the famous and ominous ‘beginning of 17 In the absence of line numbers, the standard reference system for ancient scholars was to quote the first word(s) of the relevant line. As the two final examples in this scholium show, this could even indicate whole passages that begin with the quotation.

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evil’ (κακοῦ . . . ἀρχή).18 The prolepsis in Il. 15.64–77 is substantially longer and more explicit than the one in Il. 11.604 and is therefore considered foreign to Homer’s usual narrative technique. The argument must be read against the backdrop of the emotional or psychological function that ancient critics repeatedly attribute to prolepsis. Just like the proem (of a speech or poem), the rhetorical device of prolepsis is meant to make the audience more attentive, to rouse them, stir them, engage them emotionally, make them eager to hear more, etc.19 A good example is an exegetical scholium on the same line from book 11 that has been mentioned just now. (8) The prolepsis sets the reader aflutter (ἀναπτεροῖ) and makes him eager to learn (ἐπειγόμενον μαθεῖν) what the ‘evil’ was. Homer achieves attention (προσοχή) by means of a small hint (διὰ βραχείας ἐνδείξεως). If he had given more details, he would have destroyed the sequence and made the poem blunt (ἀπήμβλυνε τὴν ποίησιν). (schol. bT Il. 11.604c ex.) In the first part the scholium mentions no fewer than three emotional effects that the prolepsis has on the reader: excitement, inquisitiveness and attention. In the second it describes how these effects are achieved: by giving the readers a foretaste of what is in store for them. The amount of information should be enough to make them curious, but not as much as to make the subsequent narration superfluous and thus take the edge off (for the metaphor cf. text 6). If the readers already know in detail what is coming, they might lose interest in it. The recommendation that the poet should not lavish information on the readers in his prolepses has a parallel in rhetorical handbooks that describe the working of a proem: (9) Thus the proem should be compact and contain only the seeds of the subject-matter (σπερματικῶς). (Anon. Seg. 36 Patillon) The argument and, perhaps more tellingly, the agricultural metaphor sound familiar.20 Well-versed orators and poets alike know how to 18 The Homeric line resonates, e.g., in Herodotus (5.97.3) and Thucydides (2.12.3, with Hornblower’s note, 1991: ad loc.). In rhetorical handbooks it illustrates the device of προαναφώνησις (‘prolepsis’): Trypho fig. 203 Spengel. For modern scholarship see, e.g., De Jong [1987a] 2004: 87, with a telling comparison with Alfred Hitchcock as ‘master of suspense’. 19 For examples see Nünlist 2009: 34–45, 135–49, with lit. The creation of πάθος is a fundamental function of the proem (e.g. Anon. Seg. 5–6, 9–18 Patillon). 20 In his note on the passage, Patillon lists as parallels for ‘seed’ Quint. 4.2.54 (semina), schol. Dem. 1.1.1c (p. 14.9 Dilts) and Syrianus (in Herm. de stat. p. 91.25

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some ancient views on narrative 165 whet the appetite of the audience, without, however, giving too much away in advance.21 They have the patience to wait until the seeds have sprouted and it is time to reap the fruit, which, needless to say, is indicative of their capacity to construct a good plot. Equipped with these general interpretative principles, the ancient critics whose notes are preserved in the medieval scholia had many opportunities to judge whether or not the poet in question had succeeded in striking a good balance between withholding and providing information. A passage that incurred criticism was Achilles’ announcement of the bow contest in the funeral games for Patroclus (Il. 23.855–8). In the second part of this speech Achilles seemed to know too well how the contest would develop (‘But if one [sc. of the two contestants] should miss the bird and still hit the string, that man, seeing that he is the loser, still shall have the half-axes’). Aristarchus felt this to be a problem of plausibility. He therefore marked the line with a diplē.22 (10) because it would be better not to have this predicted by Achilles, as if he had prior knowledge of something that was going to happen by chance. (schol. A Il. 23.857a Ariston.) The note must be read against the backdrop of Aristarchus’ interest in the causation of events in ‘reality’ and in poetry respectively. What happens by chance in reality is in literature the working of a master mind who designs his plot.23 In Achilles’ speech, his hand is felt to be too noticeable. An exegetical scholium on the same passage also criticises Achilles’ announcement, but it discusses the problem from a slightly different angle.

Rabe); for ‘seeds’ in poetic scholia see Nünlist 2009: 39–40, with lit. Regrettably, Dilts and Kennedy do not retain the metaphor in their translation of Anon. Seg. (‘deal with the subject in general terms’). 21 The postulated analogy between proem and prolepsis in ancient criticism receives further support from the fact that the term προέκθεσις, which designates a function of the proem (e.g. Anon. Seg. 10–11 Patillon), can also mean ‘prolepsis’ (e.g., schol. bT Il. 15.601–2 ex.). As is well known, to distinguish between literary criticism and rhetorical theory is foreign to ancient practice, where the former was not recognised as a domain of its own (e.g., Russell [1981] 1995: 1). 22 The diplē is the wedge-shaped sign (>) in the left margin by which Aristarchus drew the reader’s attention to passages that he considered noteworthy and therefore discussed in his commentary. It is telling that, in spite of his critique, Aristarchus does not go as far as to doubt the authenticity of the passage (i.e., mark with an obelos). For Aristarchus’ reluctance to tamper with the text in such cases see the testimonia collected by Erbse (on schol. Il. 2.665a Did.). 23 Cf. schol. A Il. 22.329 Ariston. and Nünlist 2009: 32, with more examples in n. 30.

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(11) It would have been better not to anticipate the point about the string, but to mention it afterwards as something that has happened in a suspenseful way (ἐναγώνιον). (schol. T Il. 23.857b ex.) Aristarchus takes exception to human characters who appear to know more about the causation of future events than is plausible. For the exegetical scholium the problem is more one of narrative technique.24 By anticipating that Teucer would in fact miss the pigeon and hit the string, Achilles, as it were, takes the fun out of the little scene. Had Homer paid more attention to the principle of suspense, he would have told the story differently. Again it is a surplus of information that is seen as creating a problem. On the other hand, not all anticipations are a priori wrong, since they can whet the readers’ appetite as seen. Not even the anticipation of the specific outcome need be a narrative mistake. In one of his well-known νήπιος-comments, for example, Homer makes it clear that the Trojan hothead Asius will eventually be killed by Idomeneus (Il. 12.113–17, narrated in 13.384–93). An exegetical scholium on the passage reads: (12) It is in accordance with standard rhetorical technique to anticipate both the killing and by whom it will be done, in order for the reader to be curious also to read about the things before . (schol. bT Il. 12.116–17 ex.) Although (or, rather, because) the readers already know that Asius is doomed to be killed and by whom, they long to hear about the events that lead up to it. According to the anonymous critic, this is standard rhetorical technique (cf. text 9). One may also be reminded of the pattern that messenger speeches in tragedy often display. A concise summary of the outcome is followed by an extended narrative account of what happened in detail (cf. schol. Eur. Phoen. 1339). The final part of text 7 addresses another aspect of the surplus of information, in that the scholium interestingly compares the incriminated prolepsis (Il. 15.64–77) with two instances of analepsis that are equally suspect (Il. 1.366–92, Od. 23.310–43). In both cases, a character recapitulates the earlier events on behalf of another character (Achilles to Thetis, Odysseus to Penelope). Alexandrian critics generally kept 24 Erbse attributes both scholia to Aristonicus (and thus Aristarchus). They are indeed similar, but it would seem to me that the exegetical scholium substantially modifies Aristarchus’ argument and should therefore not be ascribed to him.

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a close eye on repetitions and treated them with scepticism.25 The two passages in question were considered spurious by Aristarchus because he was of the opinion that Homer avoided repeating himself (παλιλλογεῖν).26 Text 7 reflects this view (hence Erbse’s hesitant attribution to Didymus).27 As a further step, all three passages are tentatively traced back to an interpolator who is held responsible for generating an unnecessary surplus of information. This view did not remain undisputed. Others defended the two analepses by invoking the rhetorical device of ἀνακεφαλαίωσις.28 In rhetorical theory (e.g. Anon. Seg. 203–21 Patillon) this term designates the recapitulating part within a speech’s concluding peroration (ἐπίλογος), but such recapitulation can appear also in the middle of a speech (Anon. Seg. 211). The term is thus equally suited to both Homeric examples. In this connection it is also worth mentioning that rhetorical handbooks discuss the question whether or not an ἀνακεφαλαίωσις is actually called for (Theon 78.6–8 Sp., Anon. Seg. 204, 212). Important criteria are whether the audience needs to be reminded or not (hence the alternative term ἀνάμνησις) and whether the recapitulation suits the orator’s needs. He will recapitulate his strong points and pass over in silence the weaker ones. Several texts above (6–8, 11) make use of the dichotomy ‘exciting versus dull’ (each side with multiple synonyms). The underlying narrative principle is well formulated by Pseudo-Demetrius. (13) We should not immediately say that the events happened but reveal them only gradually, keeping the reader in suspense (κρεμῶντα τὸν ἀκροατήν) and forcing him to share the anguish (συναγωνιᾶν). (eloc. 216, trans. Innes, adapted) Authors (poets and orators alike) want their audiences never to lose interest (they might even fall asleep).29 Pseudo-Demetrius gives vivid expression to how this is best achieved: by keeping the readers in suspense and engaging them emotionally.30 In order to do so, the author 25 This scepticism, however, did not mean that they attempted to eliminate (verbatim) repetitions altogether. In fact more repetitions were left untouched than not (Lührs 1992). 26 Cf. schol. A Il. 1.365a Ariston. and the Odyssean scholium mentioned in n. 28. 27 Contrast Meijering 1987: 287 n. 211, who claims that Aristarchus’ reason is ‘completely different’. 28 The disagreement with Aristarchus is explicit in schol. QV Od. 23.310–43 and implicit in schol. bT Il. 1.366a/b ex. As to the prolepsis of Iliad 15, an exegetical scholium (schol. bT Il. 15.64c ex.) uses the curious term προανακεφαλαίωσις. 29 On sleeping audiences see, e.g., the passages collected in Nünlist 2009: 138 n. 8. 30 Text 7 sees a similar connection between restricted distribution of information and suspense when it contrasts Euripides with Homer and declares the latter ἐναγώνιος

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must find the right topic, one apt to keep the readers spellbound (cf. Od. 1.351–2). In the immediate context of text 13 Pseudo-Demetrius speaks of disasters or bad news, a subject that hardly ever fails to have its desired effect on audiences. The scholia add more examples. For instance, Homer has two leading heroes (ἄριστοι) fight the boxing match in the funeral games because ‘we feel not so much agony for a common man as we do for a great man’ (schol. T Il. 23.659b1 ex.). Likewise, he exposes the greatest heroes to danger in order to make the reader anxious.31 Several notes make it clear that the readers’ expectation is a crucial factor in the process of creating suspense; they wait and see (with delight, anxiety, curiosity, etc.) where the story will actually lead them.32 In the present context, the following scholium is worth quoting because it deals with how the poet construes his plot. The note is triggered by the climactic scene in which Hector and Achilles finally meet for their long-expected showdown. Homer makes Achilles miss his first shot, which takes the reader by surprise: (14) He (sc. Homer) makes the state of affairs suspenseful (ἐναγώνιον), in that he modifies what the readers expected and tells a different story. (schol. T Il. 22.274a1 ex.) The point appears to be that the text puts the readers in a state of expectation that is then either fulfilled or, as in the present case, thwarted. Such a misdirection has, among other things, a retarding effect. The readers thus never quite know what to expect next, which prevents them from becoming too relaxed or disengaged.33 Text 7 criticises Euripides, as seen, for the prolixity of his prologues. Similar arguments occur elsewhere, for instance, in a scholium on the opening scene of Sophocles’ Ajax (Meijering 1987: 191): (15) The subject-matter (sc. of the play) is concisely (κατὰ βραχύ) made known in dialogue form (ἐν τοῖς ἀμοιβαίοις). For it would

(footnote 30 continued) (‘full of suspense’; for this meaning here see Nünlist 2009: 40 n. 54, based on Meijering 1987: 205 n. 212, but see already Roemer 1912: 297: ‘auf Spannung bedacht’). In a 2013 paper, De Jonge and Ooms make the attractive suggestion that the common denominator of the polysemous adjective ἐναγώνιος is the involvement and engagement of the audience. 31 E.g., schol. bT Il. 17.240–3 ex. (on Ajax), sim. T Il. 11.401 ex. (on Odysseus), with the telling remark that Homer puts him ‘again’ (πάλιν) in danger. 32 E.g., schol. bT Il. 8.217a ex.; for more examples see Nünlist 2009: 140–1, 149–51 and thematic index s.v. ‘reader, expectation of’. 33 The attitude that text 14 presupposes is that of pro-Greek readers. They expect Achilles to hit his target and are taken by surprise and therefore get nervous when he does not do so. For ancient comments on the ‘creation of false expectations’ see Nünlist 2009: 150–1, with lit. in n. 60; add J. V. Morrison 1993.

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some ancient views on narrative 169 be tedious (προσκορές) to go through the whole thing in narrative mode (διηγηματικῷ εἴδει). (schol. S. Aj. 38a) The note opposes two types of prologue, dialogic and concise, the other narrative (i.e., monologic), long and therefore tedious. Even though Euripides is not expressly mentioned in this scholium, it seems more than likely that he is the understood target. After all, he tends to open his plays with an extended monologue, whereas Sophocles favours opening scenes in dialogue form (the exception being Trachiniae among his extant plays). The contrast between ‘in dialogue form’ and ‘in narrative mode’ perhaps includes a generic argument. Sophocles has chosen the means appropriate to the dramatic genre, whereas it is inadvisable to inflate plays with narrative, that is, undramatic elements.34 Be that as it may, long narrative prologues are in any case said to be boring, not least because they include too much information, which is the probable implication of ‘to go through the whole thing’ (τὸ πᾶν διελθεῖν). This brings us back to the question of ‘where to begin’, as the following quotation from a rhetorical handbook shows: (16) As far as the content is concerned, you will make your narrative concise (σύντομον), if you do not have it begin from long ago (πόρρωθεν), as Euripides has done in numerous cases. (Anon. Seg. 64–5 Patillon)

The quotation comes from the section on the three ‘virtues’ of narrative: conciseness (συντομία), perspicuity (σαφήνεια) and plausibility (πιθανότης). It is remarkable that a fundamental discussion on the principles of narrative singles out no other than Euripides as the negative example of an author who repeatedly failed the standard of conciseness. This means that at least some ancient critics took exception to the way he selected his starting point not only in comparison to other playwrights such as Sophocles but in a general sense.35 To begin one’s narrative ‘from long ago’ (πόρρωθεν) was a mistake, and Euripides was considered the one who more than once committed it. The Anonymus Seguerianus does not substantiate his allegation. The tragic scholia, however, level the same type of criticism specifically at the starting point of Euripides’ genealogies.36 The first example again opposes Sophocles and Euripides: 34 For the difference in size between drama and epic see Arist. Poet. 1459b17–31. 35 A different view is expressed by Eustathius (Meijering 1987: 147), perhaps based on ancient sources. 36 For ancient sources that criticise Euripides, Elsperger 1907–10 remains the most comprehensive collection.

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(17) He (sc. Sophocles in Oedipus at Colonus) has arranged it well that Oedipus is known to the Athenians (i.e. the Chorus), lest he become a nuisance (ἐνοχλεῖν) to the spectators by giving a genealogy that starts at the beginning (ἄνωθεν). But Euripides is of this kind. In Suppliant Women (104ff.) at least he has Theseus be unfamiliar with Adrastus’ circumstances in order to expand (μηκῦναι) the play. (schol. Soph. OC 220) The comparison, to be sure, is somewhat strained. For it is hard to imagine how the plot of Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus might work if the Chorus did not know about Oedipus and his plight. One gets the impression that to criticise Euripides for his long genealogies has become something of a stock argument. The final clause of the scholium is particularly stinging because it suggests that he merely intended to inflate his plays.37 Other notes, however, preserve the traces of remarkable arguments among ancient critics. A good example is a long scholium on the opening scene of Euripides’ Phoenician Women: (18) Furthermore, some criticise Euripides for not consistently (ἀκολούθως) giving the genealogy (sc. of the Theban dynasty). If he intended to report the action from the beginning (ἐξ ἀρχῆς), he should have narrated Cadmus’ migration from Phoenicia in detail (κατὰ λεπτόν), together with the reason. If, on the other hand, from the present (ἐκ τοῦ ὑπογυίου), he should have begun from Laius’ misfortunes. In response to them one must say that, if she (sc. Jocasta) had started from the beginning (ἄνωθεν), the speech would have been too long, especially because it is inappropriate for a woman from Thebes to be well-informed about Phoenicia. If, on the other hand, from Laius’ misfortunes, she would have left out many of the mishaps concerning Thebes: his own dogs tore Actaeon to pieces, Agaue her son Pentheus, Zeus struck Semele with a lightning and Athamas, in a fit of madness, killed Learchus, one of Ino’s sons, Melicertes jumped into the sea together with his mother. (schol. Eur. Phoen. 4) In the first part the scholium reports the view of other scholars who felt that the extant text of Euripides was an unsatisfactory in-between. To their minds, Jocasta should have either given a detailed account of Theban history (starting with Cadmus emigrating from Phoenicia) or 37 This type of criticism is not isolated; cf. Meijering 1987: 190. For μηκύνειν in ­historiography see above on Theon.

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begun in the immediate past with Laius’ misfortunes. The anonymous critic rejects both suggestions. The first is ruled out for reasons of length (is this scholar concerned about critique of the type expressed in texts 7, 15–17?) and plausible motivation (Jocasta cannot know all these details). The minimalist version is rejected because it curtails the misfortunes of Thebes. Now, Jocasta does not actually mention Actaeon, Agaue, Semele, Athamas or Melicertes. Her invocation of Helios, however, is ‘an implicit contrary-to-fact condition – “had you not shed your rays on that first day of Theban misfortune, none of this would have followed” ’ (Mastronarde 1994: ad loc.), so the ancient critic may have felt that these unfortunate Thebans are implied in Jocasta’s lament. At any rate, he defends Euripides against his critics and indirectly argues that he has given the right amount of (genealogical) information.38 No less importantly, the scholium is evidence for subtle and detailed discussions among ancient critics about ‘where to begin’. Text 15 praises Sophocles for the concise exposition of Ajax. Another scholium on this play makes a similar point in different ­terminology (Meijering 1987: 116). (19) He (sc. Sophocles) discloses all the essentials (συνεκτικά) of the subject-matter in the proem (i.e. the prologue): to whom the speech and where the scene and what Odysseus is doing. (schol. Soph. Aj. 1a). The word rendered here with ‘essentials’ (συνεκτικά), etymologically speaking, means ‘the things that are holding something together’. The term appears to be, at an unknown number of removes, an echo of Aristotle’s emphasis on narrative coherence. The essential parts of a story are the ones that hold its plot together, that is, give it coherence.39 By way of focusing his prologue on the salient points, Sophocles sees to it that the audience is neither groping in the dark nor led astray by irrelevant details. Text 15 also provides more fodder for the ‘exciting versus dull’ 38 Meijering 1987: 284 n. 179. In this connection it is worth mentioning that for ancient critics genealogical information is not a priori a bad thing. When Achilles and Aeneas meet in Iliad 20, the latter gives a long description of his pedigree, which is the cue for an exegetical scholium (schol. bT Il. 20.213b ex.) generally to praise the Homeric insertion of genealogies. The difference from the criticism expressed, for instance, in text 17 is probably due to generic considerations too (cf. n. 34). 39 Likewise, ancient critics use the term συνεκτικὰ πρόσωπα in order to designate central characters (Nünlist 2009: 244), although in this case Aristotle might object that characters are unable to give a plot coherence (Poet. 1451a16–17).

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mill. In this case, the negative side is represented by the term ‘tedious’ (προσκορής), which is commonly used in ancient literary criticism and has an interesting history. Witness the following passage from Dionysius of Halicarnassus: (20) Thucydides, on the other hand, hurtles breathlessly through an extended description of a single war, stringing together battle after battle, armament after armament and speech after speech. The result is that the hearer’s mind is exhausted. ‘There is excess’ (κόρος), as Pindar (Nem. 7.52) says, ‘even of honey, and the delightful flowers of love’. (Dion. Hal. Pomp. 3.12, trans. Usher) The quotation from Pindar is part of an Abbruchsformel which cuts off further praise for the inhabitants of the island Aegina (one of whom is the laudandus of the ode). Text 20 is remarkable because Dionysius appears to comment on the fact that the terminology of literary critics is indebted to the ‘proto-critical’ vocabulary of archaic and classical poetry. Modern scholarship has amply documented this legacy.40 It is, however, less often reflected on by ancient critics themselves. As a critical term, ‘tedious’ (προσκορής) can be used whenever the issue is ‘too much of the same’. For instance, a Homeric scholium argues that Helen knows all the Greeks whom she points out to Priam in the teichoskopia because she entertained them as guests. This fact is mentioned in the case of Idomeneus alone ‘due to the tedium’ (διὰ τὸ προσκορές), that is, in order to avoid it (schol. bT Il. 3.201 ex., with ref. to Il. 3.232). The paragraph that immediately precedes text 20 also takes its cue from Pindar, in that it deals with ἀνάπαυσις (‘pause, break’), which in Nem. 7.52–3 forms a pair of opposing terms with κόρος. The former is immediately relevant to the topic ‘plot’ because ancient critics also discuss the question whether it is appropriate to interrupt the flow of the narrative and insert an ‘excursus’ (παρέκβασις). By doing so, Dionysius and others argue, the author gives the reader the chance to take a break and thus avoids surfeit and exhaustion.41 Returning one more time to the opening lines of the Iliad, an exegetical scholium will furnish the final example to this little survey. The point of reference is the proem’s well-known question ‘What god was it then set them together in bitter collision?’ (Il. 1.8–9). The scholium reads:

40 Cf., e.g., Ford 2002 (with lit., esp. 2 nn. 3–5). 41 For discussion and more examples see Meijering 1987: 169–71.

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some ancient views on narrative 173 (21) Going over to the narrative part (διηγηματικόν), he (sc. Homer) has not follow the narrative sections (διηγήσεις) as if they were acting of their own accord (αὐτομάτους). Instead, lest he appear tedious (προσκορής) to the readers, he has accomplished his work through question and answer, suspending (ἀναρτῶν) the mind of the readers and first lifting them up (ὑψῶν) by means of the question, then giving the answer. Having found in the proem a hook for his account he narrates the wrath like a champion of rhetoric (φιλοτέχνως 42). (schol. b Il. 1.8–9 ex.)

Several of the points made in this note will need no further comment because, in essence, they repeat what has been documented in this chapter. Two aspects, however, are worth highlighting. First, this critic appears to believe that a poet can be faced with tedium even before reaching line ten of his poem. Two explanations (at least) suggest themselves. Either the original meaning of the adjective προσκορής is no longer felt and has been replaced by a less specific meaning: ‘boring’, ‘dull’ or the like. Or one might posit a whole sequence of competing oral poets who cause tedium, if they all begin their poems the same way. Second, and more importantly, this critic is less concerned with ‘where to begin’ than with ‘how to begin’. The involvement of the audience which has been shown above to be crucial for the creation of suspense is here attributed to the rhetorical device of prominently asking a question. The audience is seen as sitting on the edge of their seats because they are eager to learn the answer to the question.43 It goes without saying that the preceding survey could not present more than a small selection of ancient views on the topic under consideration. Even such a selection, however, is indicative of a strong interest among ancient critics in narrative, its structure and working. Unsurprisingly, the individual readers by no means agree on the various aspects of the larger question, and an attempt to give a summary of ‘what ancient critics thought about narrative’ is bound either to fail or to streamline the picture. In fact, the relevant sources indicate a general atmosphere of lively debate or downright polemics. Also striking is the degree to which ancient critics are prepared to ‘go deep’ and address even minute details of the larger topic ‘narrative’. They thereby implicitly agree that narrative is definitely worth 42 On this term see the series of articles by Lundon (1997, 1998, 1999a, 1999b). 43 Lucian, on the other hand, makes fun of a historian who used this rhetorical device ad nauseam in his prologue (Hist. conscr. 17).

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discussing and/or theorising about, even though they may disagree on the specific points or examples. While the search for a general characteristic that completely distinguishes Greek narrative from that of all other (ancient) societies is likely to be futile, the relevant critical literature on the subject in Greek is truly remarkable in terms of both its quantity and quality. Of the various aspects that the present survey has attempted to illustrate one is perhaps worth singling out by way of conclusion. A tenet common among historians of literary criticism has it that pre-twentieth-century scholarship largely focused on the production side of literature and thus tended to underestimate the other side, that is, the reader (e.g. Eagleton 1996: 64–5). Several texts above show that this view needs to be qualified. Owing to their strong connection with rhetoric, that is, a genre with a strong performative and thus ‘interactive’ component, ancient critics were less likely to ‘forget’ that literature was produced for (or even: before) an audience and had its effect on them.

9 WHO, SAPPHO? Alex Purves

It is clear that Sappho’s poems, so far as we can reconstruct them, are not ‘narratives’ in the ordinary sense, even if we do not wish to accept the argument that lyric and narrative are naturally opposed.1 There is an obvious difference between the kind of story being told in Sappho fr. 94, where the speaker asks a girl who is leaving to remember their gentle pleasures together, and the extended heroic narrative of the Iliad. But how are we to frame that difference in terms of narrative? More specifically, can a poem like fr. 94 (already compromised by its incomplete state) count as narrative at all? Perhaps the easiest place to start in considering the place of narrative in Sappho is her use of named characters from Greek mythology. There are several instances of mythological narrative in Sappho’s corpus, where parts of stories might be spelled out in detail or where the simple reference to a name will be enough to set a story in motion. When Sappho mentions Helen, for example, in fr. 16,2 or has a messenger recount Hector’s return to Troy with Andromache in fr. 44, or evokes Tithonus in the New Sappho, we know that we are firmly in the world of Greek storytelling. But a name alone is not enough: how extensive must the episodes be in which these characters appear, and

For valuable suggestions and discussion, I thank the audience at the Leventis Conference in Edinburgh, as well as audiences at the University of Toronto and the University of Washington where subsequent versions of this chapter were presented. I am also grateful to Douglas Cairns, Kathryn Morgan, Sheila Murnaghan, Melissa Mueller, Craig Russell, Seth Schein, Ruth Scodel and Mario Telò for their helpful comments on written versions of this chapter.   1 As suggested by scholars of Romantic and later poetry, who have said that lyric opens up an entirely different space for reflection and representation – one in which the personal and the occasional find expression, and where, most importantly, emotion and experience are no longer subordinated to the demands of narrative form. For discussion and critique of this argument, see, e.g., Jeffreys 1995; Friedman 1989, 1994; Murnaghan and Roberts 2002: 4; Hühn 2005; Dubrow 2006; McHale 2009.   2 P. A. Rosenmeyer 1997: 142.

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how detailed, before they can be said to open up into new narratives of their own?3 What, also, about the difference between mythological and quasi-autobiographical narrative, as in Sappho’s references to her rivalry with Andromeda, or love for Anactoria, or her brother’s relationship with Doricha?4 Do these small traces of detail about Sappho’s life, whether real or constructed, build up to a larger overarching narrative that she dispenses poem by poem?5 Given the context in which Sappho was composing, and given, as well, her long-established intertextual correspondence with Homer, I take the Iliad as my precedent for Greek narrative in this chapter. It has been widely recognised that Sappho artfully employs epic vocabulary and motifs in her fragments, often in order to differentiate her own voice and lyric style from Homer’s.6 But it has less often been considered how Sappho engages with him as a story-teller. Her explicit deviation from certain narrative practices found in the Iliad, especially in fr. 1, her only known complete poem, will form the basis of my analysis.7 By analysing just one of the specific ways in which Sappho’s narrative practice differs from Homer’s, this chapter aims to help us think further about what Greek narrative is, how it works, and how it develops across genres. In what follows I focus on Sappho’s use of the interrogative and indefinite pronouns tis or ti (‘who’ or ‘what’) as potential signposts for the act of storytelling in her work. In doing so, I look back to a practice in Homer of using tis to introduce different narrative voices within the epic frame and to draw attention to the alternative roles of the named individual and the anonymous participant in the construction of ancient narrative.8 As I see it, tis has at least four jobs in Homer, each of which has a bearing on the way that the Iliad is constructed as a narrative.   3 Cf. McHale: ‘Is narrativity a matter of kind, or of degree? Are texts either narrative or not-narrative, with no intermediate or partial options? Or is narrativity a matter of degree: more or less narrative; perhaps a scale ranging from, say, nonnarrative to minimally narrative to fully narrative?’ (2001: 166, emphasis original).   4 A. D. Morrison 2007a: 36–102. Sappho names fourteen girls in her extant poetry, which is a considerable number. She emerges, therefore, as interesting as much for her naming as her non-naming practices. See M. Y. Mueller 2012 for the connection between memory, performance and naming in Sappho.  5 Yatromanolakis 2009.  6 See especially Rissman 1983; Winkler 1990; P. A. Rosenmeyer 1997; Blondell 2010. For a good overview and analysis of the relationship between epic and lyric, see Graziosi and Haubold 2009.   7 My setting of lyric narrative in opposition to Homeric epic is nothing new – Lowe, for example, has written of lyric’s ‘drastically unHomeric approach to narrative’ (2000: 84). But in pursuing this angle I hope to shed further light on Sappho’s own concerns with the concept of plot and storyline.   8 Names play a role in establishing a storyworld’s cast of characters, enabling the reader to answer questions such as: ‘who is there, how many are there, who is who,

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who, sappho? 177 1. Tis offers alternative or anonymous viewpoints to those of the primary narrator or named characters. I am thinking here of the so-called tis-speeches, a topic that has been worked on by De Jong (1987b) and Scodel (1992), among others.9 2. Tis opens up a gap between ‘Homer’ and the Muse, as when Homer draws attention to his own role as narrator by calling upon the Muse with the question ‘who . . . ?’10 3. Tis provides the poet with an opportunity to insert anonymous or archetypal characters alongside the main narrative through the device of the simile. It is not uncommon for a simile to begin with some variation of ὡς δ’ ὅτε τις . . . (‘as when someone [or some animal] . . . ’).11 4. Tis creates a counterpoint to the epic art of naming, and the considerable flourish with which this act is carried out. In the Iliad, the tiny word tis, whether indefinite or interrogative, stands at the opposite end of the spectrum to names that – when fully elaborated – can take up a whole verse or more.

In fr. 1 (LP) Sappho calls Aphrodite to her, using, as has long been noted, a series of embedded frames: πο]ικιλόθρο[ν’ ἀθανάτ’ Ἀφρόδιτα, παῖ] Δ[ί]ος δολ[όπλοκε, λίσσομαί σε, μή μ’] ἄσαισι [μηδ’ ὀνίαισι δάμνα, [πότν]ια, θῦ[μον, ἀλλ]ὰ τυίδ’ ἔλ[θ’, αἴ ποτα κἀτέρωτα 5 τὰ]ς ἔμας αὔ[δας ἀίοισα πήλοι ἔκ]λυες, πάτρο[ς δὲ δόμον λίποισα [χ]ρύσιον ἦλθ[ες ἄρ]μ’ ὐπασδε[ύξαισα· κάλοι δέ σ’ ἆγον ὤ]κεες στροῦ[θοι περὶ γᾶς μελαίνας 10 πύ]κνα δίν[νεντες πτέρ’ ἀπ’ ὠράνωἴθε‑ [ρο]ς διὰ μέσσω· who did or was such and such, and is it (still) the same individual?’ (Margolin 2005: 337–8).   9 See also De Jong, this volume, on the narrative device of the anonymous traveller in Homer and beyond. 10 De Jong [1987a] 2004: 45–53. 11 Tis occurs in Homeric similes in such phrases as ὡς δ’ ὅτε τις . . . (Il. 3.33, 4.141, 6.506, 8.338, 15.263, 17.61, 20.495; Od. 5.448, 6.232, 23.159), ὥς τίς τε . . . (Il. 17.133, 542, 657) and ὡς ὅτε τις . . . (Il. 15.326, 18.600, 23.760), all meaning ‘as when some [lion, horse, etc.] . . . ’ or ‘as when someone . . . ’.

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αἶ]ψα δ’ ἐξίκο[ντο· σὺ δ’, ὦ μάκαιρα, μειδιαί[σαισ’ ἀθανάτῳ προσώπῳ ἤ]ρε’ ὄττ[ι δηὖτε πέπονθα κὤττι 15 [δη]ὖτε κ[άλ]η[μμι κ]ὤττι [μοι μάλιστα θέλω γένεσθαι μ]αινόλαι [θύμῳ· τίνα δηὖτε πείθω .].σάγην [ἐς σὰν φιλότατα; τίς σ’, ὦ [Ψά]πφ’, [ἀδικήει; 20 κα]ὶ γ[ὰρ αἰ φεύγει, ταχέως διώξει,

25

Ornate-throned immortal Aphrodite, wile-weaving daughter of Zeus, I entreat you: do not overpower my heart, mistress, with ache and anguish, but come here, if ever in the past (5) you heard my voice from afar and acquiesced and came, leaving your father’s golden house, with chariot yoked: beautiful swift sparrows whirring fast-beating wings brought you above the dark earth (10) down from heaven through the mid-air, and soon they arrived; and you, blessed one, with a smile on your immortal face asked what was the matter with me this time and why (15) I was calling this time and what in my maddened heart I most wished to happen for myself: ‘Whom am I to persuade this time to lead you back to her love? Who wrongs you, Sappho? (20) If she runs away, soon she shall pursue; if she does not accept gifts, why, she shall give them instead; and if she does not love, soon she shall love even against her will.’ Come to me now again and deliver me from oppressive anxieties (25); fulfil all that my heart longs to fulfil, and you yourself be my fellow-fighter.12 In the first frame (1–4), we have Sappho speaking – ‘Ornate-throned immortal Aphrodite . . . I entreat you: do not overpower my heart, 12 All translations of Sappho are from Campbell 1982. Fragments of Sappho are from Lobel and Page (LP) 1955.

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mistress, with ache and anguish, but come here’ – using a series of vocatives and imperatives. In the second frame (5–14), with ‘if ever in the past . . . ’ we move into Sappho’s description of Aphrodite’s previous arrival, riding down on a chariot drawn by sparrows. As the description of an event occurring (albeit repeatedly) in the past, this is the most straightforward piece of narrative in the poem. Then in the third frame (15–24) Aphrodite addresses Sappho. First with three indirect questions: ‘you . . . asked what (ὄττι) was the matter with me this time and why (ὄττι) I was calling this time and what (ὄττι) in my maddened heart I most wished to happen . . . ’ Then with two direct ones: ‘Whom (τίνα) am I to persuade this time . . . ? Who (τίς) wrongs you, Sappho?’ Finally, Aphrodite ends her speech with three conditional statements ‘If she runs away, soon she shall pursue; if she does not accept gifts, why, she shall give them instead; and if she does not love, soon she shall love even against her will.’ Although these conditions are simple, thereby implying specificity, the repetition of vocabulary and lack of direct object also generalises them, giving them a somewhat gnomic quality.13 In the last stanza of the poem (25–8), we return to the first frame and Sappho’s own speaking voice, where she again implores Aphrodite with imperatives: ‘Come to me now again and deliver me . . . ; fulfil all that my heart longs to fulfil . . . be my fellow-fighter.’ My interest for the moment lies in the questions posed by Aphrodite in the third frame, which also doubles as the central core of the poem (lines 15–24), and specifically in the fact that the goddess never receives any answers to her questions. This has caused only a small amount of puzzlement in the scholarship: West pondered why Sappho often leaves girls unnamed (1970), and before him Wilamowitz proposed that the anonymous girl in fr. 1 was a member of Sappho’s group, and thereby the recipient of a secret message (1966: 48). But the majority of scholars have felt that it is not really necessary to worry about such things. Aphrodite is an all-knowing immortal, after all, and as her smile and future predictions indicate, it does not really matter, anyway, who this girl is – she is just one in a long line of girls who have driven Sappho to heartbreak. Yet, by allowing these questions to be posed but go unanswered, Sappho makes a statement about the narratorial status of her poem.14 13 This kind of series of provisions in the form ‘if . . . then . . .’ most probably stems from magical practice (Petropoulos 1993: 45). 14 M. L. West 1970: 309 says of Theognis: ‘It may be a habit of style that he or she is not named, as in our own popular songs it is “my love”, “my darling”, “you”. Such songs have a better chance of being propagated, for anyone can sing them with his own love in mind.’ What is interesting about fr. 1, though, is that Aphrodite so insistently poses the questions.

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As Krischer has shown (1968: 12–13), we need only compare fr. 1 with Thetis’ arrival before Achilles in Book 1 of the Iliad to see that the plot device of a goddess posing these kinds of questions to the mortal that summons her has an established epic precedent: πολλὰ δὲ μητρὶ φίλῃ ἠρήσατο χεῖρας ὀρεγνύς· μῆτερ ἐπεί μ’ ἔτεκές γε μινυνθάδιόν περ ἐόντα, τιμήν πέρ μοι ὄφελλεν Ὀλύμπιος ἐγγυαλίξαι Ζεὺς ὑψιβρεμέτης· νῦν δ’ οὐδέ με τυτθὸν ἔτισεν· ἦ γάρ μ’ Ἀτρεΐδης εὐρὺ κρείων Ἀγαμέμνων 355 ἠτίμησεν· ἑλὼν γὰρ ἔχει γέρας αὐτὸς ἀπούρας. Ὣς φάτο δάκρυ χέων, τοῦ δ’ ἔκλυε πότνια μήτηρ ἡμένη ἐν βένθεσσιν ἁλὸς παρὰ πατρὶ γέροντι· καρπαλίμως δ’ ἀνέδυ πολιῆς ἁλὸς ἠΰτ’ ὀμίχλη, καί ῥα πάροιθ’ αὐτοῖο καθέζετο δάκρυ χέοντος, 360 χειρί τέ μιν κατέρεξεν ἔπος τ’ ἔφατ’ ἔκ τ’ ὀνόμαζε· τέκνον τί κλαίεις; τί δέ σε φρένας ἵκετο πένθος; ἐξαύδα, μὴ κεῦθε νόῳ, ἵνα εἴδομεν ἄμφω. Τὴν δὲ βαρὺ στενάχων προσέφη πόδας ὠκὺς Ἀχιλλεύς· οἶσθα· τί ἤ τοι ταῦτα ἰδυίῃ πάντ’ ἀγορεύω; 365 Many times stretching forth his hands he called on his mother: ‘Since, my mother, you bore me to be a man with a short life, therefore Zeus of the loud thunder on Olympos should grant me honour at least. But now he has given me not even a little. Now the son of Atreus, powerful Agamemnon, 355 has dishonoured me, since he has taken away my prize and keeps it.’ So he spoke in tears and the lady his mother heard him as she sat in the depths of the sea at the side of her aged father, and lightly she emerged like a mist from the grey water. She came and sat beside him as he wept, and stroked him 360 with her hand and called him by name and spoke to him: ‘Why then, child, do you lament? What sorrow has come to your heart now? Tell me, do not hide it in your mind, and thus we shall both know.’ Sighing heavily Achilleus of the swift feet answered her: ‘You know; since you know why must I tell you all this?’15 365 (Il. 1.351–65) 15 All translations of Homer are from Lattimore 1951 and 1965.

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who, sappho? 181 It is immediately obvious that this passage proceeds in a much more orderly narrative fashion than fr. 1. Achilles sits down in a specific place, speaks his prayer, and in response his mother arrives. Her request for him to speak out his troubles, so that they might ‘both know’, also follows an ordered narrative logic – Thetis, appearing out of the blue, seeks to catch up on the plot that has been progressing in her absence:16 τέκνον τί κλαίεις; τί δέ σε φρένας ἵκετο πένθος; ἐξαύδα, μὴ κεῦθε νόῳ, ἵνα εἴδομεν ἄμφω.                   ‘Why then, child, do you lament? What sorrow has come to your heart now? Tell me, do not hide it in your mind, and thus we shall both know.’ (Il. 1.362–3)

In comparing this passage with fr. 1, we can see that Aphrodite, also arriving in medias res, asks the same kind of plot questions that Thetis does. Sappho’s ‘[she] asked what was the matter with me this time and why I was calling this time’ (ἤ]ρε’ ὄττ[ι δηὖτε πέπονθα κὤττι / [δη]ὖτε κ[άλ]η[μμι) elaborates on Homer’s ‘Why then, child, do you lament? What sorrow has come to your heart now?’ (τέκνον τί κλαίεις; τί δέ σε φρένας ἵκετο πένθος;), with a doubling of the interrogative τί in both cases. The fact that these kinds of questions are part and parcel of (epic) narrative convention is highlighted by the wearily ironic response of Achilles, who points out that Thetis, as an immortal, knows the whole story already.17 But the in-joke shared here between the internal narrator and the god is also carefully triangulated to ensure that the audience is in the know as well. In other words, the ‘both’ in ‘thus we shall both know’ is really code for ‘we three’ (Achilles, Thetis and the audience). Although not strictly necessary, Achilles’ recapitulation of the events that the audience has just heard (what De Jong 1985 calls a mirror story) speaks to epic’s technique of ensuring that the details of the plot are fully covered. Homer has made it his primary objective from the start to ensure that we know all

16 See further Scodel’s discussion of these lines in this volume, especially for her identification of those places where gaps appear in Homer’s normally full narrative explication. 17 Robbins 1990.

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the aspects of Achilles’ distress, taking us through it in careful steps.18 Thus the οἶσθα that Achilles directs towards his mother at line 365 is also directed to us, as if to reinforce the importance of what has happened so far in the Iliad’s overall narrative structure. Sappho’s choice not to respond to Aphrodite’s questions in fr. 1, therefore, comes across as an instance of anti-narrative, or even of the ‘disnarrated style’, as outlined by Prince.19 The five questions that Aphrodite poses to Sappho when compared to Thetis’ two can be construed as lyric hyperbole, but also as a deliberate overplaying of epic’s narrative technique, only in the end to reject it. This is precisely what McHale means when he says that there are things in lyric that trigger our narrative-sensing apparatus only subsequently to frustrate it (2001: 164). In Homer, by contrast, the questions that come from gods about the workings of the plot are certainly much simpler and shorter than here, and they are always answered. This is made especially clear by the parallels that emerge once Aphrodite moves on from asking ‘what’ to ‘who’ in fr. 1. (τίνα δηὖτε πείθω/ .].σάγην [ἐς σὰν φιλότατα; τίς σ’, ὦ/ [Ψά]πφ’, [ἀδικήει; ‘Whom am I to persuade this time to lead you back20 to her love? Who wrongs you, Sappho?’, 18–20). For the two tis questions of this kind posed by gods in the Iliad (5.373–7; 21.509) receive immediate and straightforward answers. Thus Dione says to Aphrodite, when her daughter returns in distress to Olympus in Iliad 5, simply: ‘who now . . . dear child / has done such things to you?’ (τίς νύ σε τοιάδ’ ἔρεξε, φίλον τέκος;), to which Aphrodite responds with both a name and a reason: οὖτά με Τυδέος υἱὸς ὑπέρθυμος Διομήδης, / οὕνεκ’ ἐγὼ φίλον υἱὸν ὑπεξέφερον πολέμοιο (‘Tydeus’ son Diomedes, the too high-hearted, stabbed me / as I was carrying my own beloved son out of the fighting’).21 18 As Krischer 1968: 13 points out, such steps cannot fit into lyric’s more compressed style. 19 Prince 1988: 2 refers to the ‘disnarrated’ as a ‘category that covers all the events that do not happen but are nonetheless referred to (in a negative or hypothetical mode) by the text’. 20 ‘Back’ in Campbell’s translation follows the supplement ἄψ σ’ ἄγην at the beginning of the line, which Lobel and Page 1955 and Voigt 1971 are hesitant to print in their texts, although there is no viable alternative given the length of the lacuna (just one letter) in the papyrus (cf. Lobel and Page 1955: 3). 21 The same structure is used in Zeus’ question to Artemis, when she returns wounded from the theomachia at Il. 21.509–13: τίς νύ σε τοιάδ’ ἔρεξε φίλον τέκος Οὐρανιώνων / μαψιδίως, ὡς εἴ τι κακὸν ῥέζουσαν ἐνωπῇ; / Τὸν δ’ αὖτε προσέειπεν ἐϋστέφανος κελαδεινή· / σή μ’ ἄλοχος στυφέλιξε πάτερ λευκώλενος Ἥρη, / ἐξ ἧς ἀθανάτοισιν ἔρις καὶ νεῖκος ἐφῆπται. (‘Who now of the Uranian gods, dear child, has done / such things to you, rashly, as if you were caught doing something wicked?’ / Artemis sweet-garlanded lady of clamours answered him: / ‘It was your wife, Hera of the

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The last two tis questions asked by Aphrodite in fr. 1 are especially interesting, therefore, for the fact that they are left unaddressed. Aphrodite knows, after all, the ‘what’ – she knows generally what Sappho has suffered, why she has called her and what she wishes to happen. The one thing neither Aphrodite nor we can glean from the poem is the ‘who’. Even if Aphrodite’s questions are purely rhetorical, as Thetis’ are in Iliad 1, Sappho’s refusal to answer them means that the audience is kept out of the loop: just as we are over-supplied with information in Homer, here we are deprived of it.22 In the immediate present tense of the poem, then, Sappho allows the new girl’s identity to remain undifferentiated from the previous girl’s whose future was spelled out in Aphrodite’s generalising series of conditions: ‘If she runs away, soon she shall pursue; if she does not accept gifts, why, she shall give them instead; and if she does not love, soon she shall love even against her will.’ In doing so, Sappho shortcircuits the narrative potential that the questions had introduced, by reminding us that we are, after all, only within a memory of an event that happened in the past, and that the story that Sappho really cares about – now concerning a different girl – has not even started to be told in the poem. Nor will it be. In a very real sense, Sappho does not want the name of that past girl remembered at all, because to have the old girl’s name recalled would be to undermine the individuality of the new girl, whoever she is. The structure of fr. 1 is a kind of trap, therefore: to begin to answer Aphrodite’s questions would lead Sappho down a path from which there is no easy way out. Furthermore, the interrogatives and conditions in Aphrodite’s speech to Sappho, which seek to pin the narrative down to some specific starting points and draw it forwards into the future, are at cross-purposes with the immediacy of Sappho’s imperatives and the complexity of her iterative strategies. For Sappho calls on the goddess with an elaborate mix of epithets and names and spins a memorable narrative of Aphrodite’s descent from her father’s house that is furnished with pleasing detail.23 At the same time, though, she refuses to engage in particulars or to allow any kind of story to develop about herself.24 As has often been noted, this leads the poem to circle back on itself, in the retracing of steps already taken many times before – Sappho’s prayer; Aphrodite’s journey from Olympus; white arms, who hit me, / father, since hatred and fighting have fastened upon the immortals.’) 22 See n. 16. 23 Sappho names Aphrodite in six different ways in the first stanza alone: πο] ικιλόθρο[ν’, ἀθανάτ’, Ἀφρόδιτα, παῖ] Δ[ί]ος, δολ[όπλοκε, [πότν]ια. 24 Beyond her marked act of naming herself within the poem (as discussed below).

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her questions to Sappho; the girl’s running. In this scenario, Sappho’s girlfriends are reduced to no more than a cycle with no variation worth noting. There is nothing about them, in other words, no particulars, which can provide the starting points for storytelling. Rather, they are like characters drawn in an epic simile or on an ekphrastic object, or like Glaucus’ comparison of the generation of men to leaves (Il. 6.146–9). They are simply anonymous figures following an endlessly repetitive pattern of events. Whereas the simile of the leaves in the Iliad offers a commentary on the inevitable epic cycle of life and death, Sappho’s sequence of nameless girls speaks instead to the endless iterations of lyric love. Each time Aphrodite comes to Sappho, though, she seems to misunderstand this, even as she bemoans the repetitiveness of events through her use of the temporal adverb δηὖτε (‘now again’). In order to grant Sappho’s wish and to kick-start her despair into narrative action, Aphrodite needs more – she needs a name just as a magic spell needs a name in order to work.25 And because of this, Aphrodite’s role in fr. 1 extends beyond that of a double for the poem’s audience (as Thetis was in Iliad 1) to take on the authorial capacity of fabula hunter as well.26 For if, as Brooks has argued, ‘Narrative always makes the implicit claim to be in a state of repetition, as a going over again of a ground already covered; a sjužet repeating the fabula, as the detective retraces the tracks of the criminal’ (1984: 97), then in fr. 1 Sappho has cast Aphrodite in the role of a detective who goes over the same tracks that lead to the same conclusions. Aphrodite attempts to separate each incident out (‘what has happened this time, Sappho?’) but the steps she is retracing are her own going over of what has already happened before, in an attempt to grasp a story which, although as yet new and untold, she has been called upon to repeat (αἴ ποτα κἀτέρωτα, 5; δηὖτε, 15, 16, 18) and complete (τελέω, 26, 27) over and over again. Like the girl who is always chasing or being chased (21–4), the constant postponement of the fabula in fr. 1 is the paradoxical and reversed consequence of its deferral by an endless reiteration of its own sjužets. In fact, pretty much everything about fr. 1 works backwards, in narrative terms. It is standard narrative practice for a narrator to begin a poem by calling on a goddess. But when this happens in the Iliad, we see that narrator asking the Muse to give him the starting blocks of his story with the answer to a tis question:

25 On the poem’s similarity to a magic spell or incantation, see Segal 1974; Burnett 1983: 254–8; Petropoulos 1993. 26 See further Winkler 1990: 166–76, on the multiple role-playing in fr. 1.

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who, sappho? 185 Μῆνιν ἄειδε θεὰ Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος οὐλομένην, ἣ μυρί’ Ἀχαιοῖς ἄλγε’ ἔθηκε, πολλὰς δ’ ἰφθίμους ψυχὰς Ἄϊδι προΐαψεν ἡρώων, αὐτοὺς δὲ ἑλώρια τεῦχε κύνεσσιν οἰωνοῖσί τε πᾶσι, Διὸς δ’ ἐτελείετο βουλή, 5 ἐξ οὗ δὴ τὰ πρῶτα διαστήτην ἐρίσαντε Ἀτρεΐδης τε ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν καὶ δῖος Ἀχιλλεύς. Τίς τάρ σφωε θεῶν ἔριδι ξυνέηκε μάχεσθαι; Λητοῦς καὶ Διὸς υἱός· ὃ γὰρ βασιλῆϊ χολωθεὶς Sing, goddess, the anger of Peleus’ son Achilleus and its devastation, which put pains thousandfold upon the Achaians, hurled in their multitude to the house of Hades strong souls of heroes, but gave their bodies to be the delicate feasting of dogs, of all birds, and the will of Zeus was accomplished 5 since that time when first there stood in division of conflict Atreus’ son the lord of men and brilliant Achilleus. Who of the gods was it then set them together in bitter collision? Zeus’ son and Leto’s, Apollo, who in anger at the king . . . (Il. 1.1–9; Lattimore’s translation modified) The Iliad’s opening shows how important the interrogative tis can be for getting a story started.27 But what is still more interesting about fr. 1 is that – even though Aphrodite is clearly standing in as some kind of double for the Muse in that poem28 – it is Sappho, not the goddess, who is the source of information being appealed to. This is precisely the wrong way around. In Greek narrative as Homer constructs it, it is the Muse who is called on by the narrator at key moments in the poem to answer the question ‘who?’, as the following well-known examples demonstrate:29

27 See for comparison Hunter, this volume, and Acosta-Hughes’s discussion (2010: 18) of Simaitha’s phrase ἐκ τίνος ἄρξωμαι; (‘from where shall I begin?’) at Theocr. Id. 2.65. As both observe, the τίνος here is deliberately ambiguous (it could be neuter, denoting ‘what point’, or masculine/feminine, ‘from whom’). Their different observations point to the rich possibilities for this word as Theocritus takes it up from Homer and Sappho. 28 As suggested by Skinner 2002, who also notes that the Alexandrians’ placement of fr. 1 at the beginning of Sappho’s first book would indicate that they viewed Aphrodite as a Muse figure appearing in a prooimion (68). I thank Richard Hunter for first drawing my attention to the suggestive parallels of Aphrodite’s role as Muse here. 29 As discussed in De Jong 1987a: 45–53. Note also those rhetorical questions that follow the same format but are not addressed to the Muses: Ἔνθα τίνα πρῶτον Τρώων ἕλε Τεῦκρος ἀμύμων; (Il. 8.273); Ἔνθα τίνα πρῶτον, τίνα δ’ ὕστατον

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Ἔσπετε νῦν μοι Μοῦσαι Ὀλύμπια δώματ’ ἔχουσαι· ὑμεῖς γὰρ θεαί ἐστε πάρεστέ τε ἴστέ τε πάντα, ἡμεῖς δὲ κλέος οἶον ἀκούομεν οὐδέ τι ἴδμεν· οἵ τινες ἡγεμόνες Δαναῶν καὶ κοίρανοι ἦσαν. Tell me now, you Muses who have your homes on Olympos. For you, who are goddesses, are there, and you know all things, and we have heard only the rumour of it and know nothing. Who then of those were the chief men and the lords of the Danaans? (Il. 2.484–7) Οὗτοι ἄρ’ ἡγεμόνες Δαναῶν καὶ κοίρανοι ἦσαν· τίς τὰρ τῶν ὄχ’ ἄριστος ἔην σύ μοι ἔννεπε Μοῦσα αὐτῶν ἠδ’ ἵππων, οἳ ἅμ’ Ἀτρεΐδῃσιν ἕποντο. These then were the leaders and the princes among the Danaans. Tell me then, Muse, who of them all was the best and bravest, of the men, and the men’s horses, who went with the sons of Atreus. (Il. 2.760–2) Ἔσπετε νῦν μοι Μοῦσαι Ὀλύμπια δώματ’ ἔχουσαι ὅς τις δὴ πρῶτος Ἀγαμέμνονος ἀντίον ἦλθεν ἢ αὐτῶν Τρώων ἠὲ κλειτῶν ἐπικούρων. Tell me now, you Muses who have your homes on Olympos, who was the first to come forth and stand against Agamemnon of the very Trojans, or their renowned companions in battle. (Il. 11.218–20) Ἔσπετε νῦν μοι Μοῦσαι Ὀλύμπια δώματ’ ἔχουσαι ὅς τις δὴ πρῶτος βροτόεντ’ ἀνδράγρι’ Ἀχαιῶν ἤρατ’, ἐπεί ῥ’ ἔκλινε μάχην κλυτὸς ἐννοσίγαιος. Tell me now, you Muses who have your homes on Olympos, who was the first of the Achaians to win the bloody despoilment

(footnote 29 continued) ἐξενάριξεν / Ἕκτωρ Πριαμίδης, ὅτε οἱ Ζεὺς κῦδος ἔδωκεν; (Il. 11.299–300); Ἔνθα τίνα πρῶτον τίνα δ’ ὕστατον ἐξενάριξας / Πατρόκλεις, ὅτε δή σε θεοὶ θάνατον δὲ κάλεσσαν; (Il. 16.692–3).

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who, sappho? 187 of men, when the glorious shaker of the earth bent the way of the battle? (Il. 14.508–10)

In fact, in only one of the six instances when Homer addresses the Muses in the Iliad does he fail to use the interrogative pronoun tis. On that last occasion he instead asks them ‘how’ (ὅππως, Il. 16.112–13). These questions are often asked self-reflexively by the Homeric narrator, and the five examples of Muse invocation involving tis listed here have been interpreted in a number of different ways. They can be seen as examples of the Muses giving Homer specific information, of enhancing the rhetorical force of the information he already knows, or of setting things in order into a catalogue that might otherwise be difficult to memorise.30 In fr. 1, there is a similar ‘catalogue’ of girls hiding in nuce, yet Sappho refuses to differentiate them and put them in sequence. In comparison with Homer, this is a starkly antinarrative move. In the Iliad, anonymous figures get named when they die, and attached to those names is often a short obituary narrative detailing their lives or accomplishments. These small acts of narration flesh out the plot, helping to make it more precise and particular.31 By separating out individual lives like this, often starting with a name and elaborating through a relative clause, the narrator moves from the model of an archetypal utterance (‘as is the generation of leaves, so is the generation of man’; ‘If she runs away, soon she shall pursue’) to a story that varies with each repetition through the addition of individual, named participants. What Sappho is telling us in fr. 1 is that something badly needs to be ‘fulfilled’ (teleō), but she goes out of her way not to couch that something in narrative form. This is despite the fact that teleō is associated with the workings of a Homeric plot at Il. 1.5 and, among other places, in Achilles’ speech to Thetis (1.388). We might also compare the use of ekteleō at fr. 112, where we learn that a bridegroom’s wish has been accomplished because he named the girl he desired in his prayers: ὄλβιε γάμβρε, σοὶ μὲν δὴ γάμος ὠς ἄραο ἐκτετέλεστ’, ἔχῃς δὲ πάρθενον †ἂν† ἄραο . . .

30 De Jong 1987a has suggested that in posing these questions the primary narratorfocaliser does not really seek out information so much as to portray himself as a ‘“self-conscious narrator” . . . who is aware of and reflects on his own role’ (46). 31 Cf. Scodel 2002: 97–9.

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Happy bridegroom, your marriage has been fulfilled as you prayed, you have the girl for whom you prayed . . . (fr. 112.1–2) But Sappho, rather than following the model of the potential groom in a marriage plot, instead inserts her own name almost at the very end of Aphrodite’s list of questions: ἤ]ρε’ ὄττ[ι δηὖτε πέπονθα κὤττι 15 [δη]ὖτε κ[άλ]η[μμι κ]ὤττι [μοι μάλιστα θέλω γένεσθαι μ]αινόλαι [θύμῳ· τίνα δηὖτε πείθω .].σάγην [ἐς σὰν φιλότατα; τίς σ’, ὦ [Ψά]πφ’, [ἀδικήει; 20 you . . . asked what was the matter with me this time and why I was calling this time and what in my maddened heart I most wished to happen for myself: ‘Whom am I to persuade this time to lead you back to her love? Who wrongs you, Sappho?’ (fr. 1.15–20) In place of an anonymous (Homeric) narrator who supplies plot information by providing the names of who-did-what-to-whom, we now have a narrator who inserts her own name on the brink of the moment when we were expecting another one.32 What I am attempting to do here is not retread discussions of the breakthrough of the lyric ‘I’, but rather re-examine the place of that ‘I’ from a narratological perspective. Prins calls Aphrodite’s naming of Sappho at this point a reversal of Sappho’s initial invocation of her, and this reversal in turn produces a narrative complexity that results in Sappho’s name being written wrong: a contraction makes the ‘o’ at the end of ‘Sappho’ disappear, while the vocative ‘O’ makes it reappear at the beginning of the name. Thus Sappho becomes O Sapph . . . , transposing the letters to spell the name out of order, and reversing the alphabet by placing the last letter first: the omega before the alpha, the end before the beginning, an alphabetical hysteron proteron. (Prins 1999: 12)

32 Greene 1994 discusses the famous use of the vocative Ψάπφ’ in fr. 94, which, she argues, ‘bridges the gap between the past of narration and the now of discourse’ (48).

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who, sappho? 189 This reading is appealing, but the placement of Sappho’s name here is perhaps still more complex than Prins gives credit for. What is doubly elided by the poem is that the missing sound at the end of Ψάπφ’ would be the vocative ending -οι rather than -ω. Yet fr. 1 also works to cover over that fact, so that Sappho’s name can play more than one role in the poem at once. Consider the sound patterns already at work in Aphrodite’s speech. In addition to the two well-known examples of repetition in her questions at lines 15–18: ὄττ[ι κὤττι / κ]ὤττι

δηὖτε 15 [δη]ὖτε 16 17 δηὖτε 18

there is an example of potential or slipped rhyme, initiated by the ὦ at the end of line 19: .].σάγην [ἐς σὰν

τίς σ’, ὦ / 19 [Ψά]πφ’, [ἀ- 20

Given that Aphrodite’s questions have already lulled the listener, with their sounded repetitions, into expecting melodious patterns (note the combinations of sigma and alpha sounds in both lines), the suggestive rhyming of τίς σ’ , ὦ with the hinted but unexpressed word Ψαπφώ at the beginning of the next line creates another example of circularity in the poem.33 Sappho’s phonic overlaying of her own name onto the interrogative pronoun that takes σε (you) as its object stops Aphrodite’s question in its tracks, confusing even further the question of who exactly we are talking about.34 To make the circling around tis more dizzying still, the ἄψ with which these lines must begin (ἄψ σ’ ἄγην, ‘lead you back’, 19) also reverses the first two letters of Sappho’s name.35 Sappho, in other words, interrupts the story-unit of subject, 33 See further Petropoulos 1993: 45–6, for a discussion of the triple anaphora, double repetition, repetitive variation, repeated sounds, near internal rhymes and assonance in the stanza that follows (21–4). These repetitions and recurrent rhythms and their connection to erotic and magical language are also discussed by Segal 1974. 34 On the uncovering of hidden words in a text through sound-play, see Shoptaw 2000; McHale 2005; Stewart 2009. 35 See n. 20.

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verb and object by overlaying herself, the subject, back onto the place where the object is supposed to fall each time.36 The kind of avoidance of specificity that we find in fr. 1 is also comparable to Sappho’s correlative pairings of the indefinites ὄττις or ὄσσα with the demonstrative pronoun κῆνος elsewhere in her poetry. Thus ὄσσα . . . κῆ[να (‘as many mistakes as he made before, may he atone for them’) is conjectured by Campbell (1982) at fr. 15.5, and ὄ]ττινα[ς . . . / . . . κῆνοι occurs at fr. 26.2–3 (‘whomever I treat well, those ones harm me most of all’). But the most famous examples occur at frr. 16: κῆν’ ὄτ- / τω τις ἔραται (‘that thing, whatever someone loves’, 3–4) and 31: κῆνος . . . / . . . ὄττις (‘that man, who’, 1–2). In their simple function as indefinites, these pronouns draw attention to the importance of the anonymous figure or generalised thing in Sappho’s work. First, let us consider fr. 16, which begins with the fact that men may be divided into groups depending on whether they admire most a host of cavalry, foot-soldiers or ships. Already at the start of the poem, therefore, we have three quite particular sub-categories. For Sappho, on the other hand, beauty is defined by the demonstrative keino and two indefinite pronouns ‘whatever thing anyone loves’. ο]ἰ μὲν ἰππήων στρότον οἰ δὲ πέσδων οἰ δὲ νάων φαῖσ’ ἐπ[ὶ] γᾶν μέλαι[ν]αν ἔ]μμεναι κάλλιστον, ἔγω δὲ κῆν’ ὄτ‑ τω τις ἔραται· Some say a host of cavalry, others of infantry, and others of ships, is the most beautiful thing on the black earth, but I say it is whatsoever a person loves. (fr. 16.1–4) The poem goes on to provide two names. First, Helen, who is not offered as an example of the object of love, but as the tis – the ‘someone’ who does the loving.37 Here, Sappho offers us, as she did 36 On the frequency of Sappho’s occurrence as both subject and object in her poetry, cf. Winkler 1990: 166–76; P. A. Rosenmeyer 1997: 146; Greene 2002. 37 As Victoria Wohl has suggested to me, Helen’s function in the poem is comparable to that of a tis character in a Homeric simile, since both serve to elaborate a primary idea through example, except that here the categories have been flipped. In a simile, a named subject is compared to a generalised thing, often via the use of an indefinite adjective or pronoun. In this example, the unnamed subject (tis) is compared to the hyper-named figure of Helen. We had initially been led to expect a comparison to the object of desire, the κῆν’ ὄττω, but the comparison diverts us by linking to its subject: Helen instead of Paris. The naming of Helen in fr. 16, in other words, takes us on a generic detour, pointing to a reversed correspondence between epic and lyric practices, at the same time as it re-inscribes the anticipated

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who, sappho? 191 with the chariot journey of Aphrodite, a mini-narrative that is fuelled by several verbs of motion.38 . . . ἀ γὰρ πόλυ περσκέ̣θ̣ο̣ι̣σ̣α κ̣άλ̣λο̣ς̣ [ἀνθ]ρ̣ώπων Ἐλένα [τὸ]ν ἄνδρα τ̣ὸν̣ [ ].στον κ̣αλλ[ίποι]σ̣’ ἔβα ’ς Τροΐαν πλέοι[̣σα κωὐδ[ὲ πα]ῖδος οὐδὲ φίλων το[κ]ήων 10 π̣ά[μπαν] ἐμνάσθη, ἀλλὰ παράγ̣α̣γ̣’ α̣ὔταν . . . for she who far surpassed mankind in beauty, Helen, left her most noble husband and went sailing off to Troy with no thought at all for her child or dear parents (10), but (love) lead her astray . . . (fr. 16.6–11) After Helen comes Anactoria, now finally providing a named example of the object – that thing which someone (now Sappho) loves: ..]μ̣ε̣ νῦν Ἀνακτορί[ας ὀ]ν̣έ̣μναι‑ σ’ οὐ ] παρεοίσας, τᾶ]ς ε βολλοίμαν ἔρατόν τε βᾶμα κἀμάρυχμα λάμπρον ἴδην προσώπω ἢ τὰ Λύδων ἄρματα †κανοπλοισι [ μ]άχεντας.

15

20

(and she?) has reminded me now of Anactoria who is not here; I would rather see her lovely walk and the bright sparkle of her face than the Lydians’ chariots and armed infantry . . . (fr. 16.15–20) And yet even here, as Burnett (1983: 289–90) has shown, Anactoria is already gone, and the traces of her that are left – a lovely step and the shine of light off her face – are the most intangible of signs. We do not see her, just as we do not follow her to any specific place (as we did with Helen). Fr. 16 names as it also takes away, therefore, enticing us object of desire with the desiring subject (and Paris, as has often been noted, is not named at all). In these ways, Sappho appears to be using Helen and epic as a bridge between naming and not-naming. On Helen’s role in this poem, see also duBois [1978] 1996; P. A. Rosenmeyer 1997; Blondell 2010. 38 fr. 1.5–13: ἔλ[θ’, λίποισα, ἦλθ[ες, ἆγον, ἐξίκο[ντο, fr. 16. 9–11: κ̣αλλ[ίποι]σ̣’, ἔβα, πλέοι̣[σα, παράγ̣α̣γ̣’. As others have noted, Helen and Aphrodite both ‘leave’ and are ‘led’ in their respective mini-narratives. Cf. Blondell 2010: 381–2.

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to see the object of the poem as both specific and elusive – a character around whom stories begin to cluster before we pass on to something or someone else. The puzzling of scholars over the identity of ‘that man’ (κῆνος) at fr. 31.1 points again to Sappho’s deliberate use of indefinites in her work.39 I am suggesting that it is important to her narratorial stance to keep these indefinites in play, to not give too much information, to keep her narratives elliptical.40 Perhaps the unnamed man and woman in fr. 31 are, as has been suggested, a bride and groom, or perhaps this fragment reflects some other aspect of Sappho’s experience, whether fictive or real.41 But in both cases, what is remarkable is the specificity of Sappho’s symptoms vis-à-vis the unspecified nature of the characters in the scene. Ferrari labels this ‘an inner tension within the lyric discourse’: ‘Whereas the indicative mood of φαίνεται (l. 1), ἰσδάνει (l. 3) and ὐπακούει (l. 4) itself implies an actual dimension, the demonstrative κῆνος and the indefinite pronoun ὄττις (“whoever that may be”) distance the man, blurring his outlines into an evanescent symbolic figure’ (Ferrari 2010: 183). As he goes on to show, the parallel suggested by Winkler (1990: 178–80) with the passage from the Odyssey where Odysseus praises Nausicaa’s marriageability is enlightening in this respect: κεῖνος δ’ αὖ περὶ κῆρι μακάρτατος ἔξοχον ἄλλων ὅς κέ σ’ ἐέδνοισι βρίσας οἶκόνδ’ ἀγάγηται but blessed at the heart, even beyond these others, is that one who, after loading you down with gifts, leads you as his bride home. (Od. 6.158–9) As I see it, the Odyssey passage sets a story in motion in Nausicaa’s mind where it is already very clear who the κῆνος is supposed to be (despite the fact that Odysseus has no ‘home’ on Scheria to which to lead her). This is confirmed by her words later in the book, where τίς, now with the addition of the deictic ὅδε, refers specifically to Odysseus: 39 See Page 1955a: 20ff. for discussion of the use of the indefinite relative ὄττις with a definite antecedent here. He argues for the last of three alternatives: ‘That man, whatever his name may be, who is sitting opposite you, is fortunate.’ 40 Whitmarsh 2004: 204 calls Sappho’s refusal to explain the identities of the figures or to explain cause and effect sequentially in fr. 31 part of her anti-narrative strategy. 41 The suggestion, first made by Wilamowitz ([1913] 1966), has inspired vigorous scholarly debate. See Furley 2000: 7–8 and n. 4 for discussion and bibliography. On Sappho’s wedding poetry, see Stehle 1997: 278–88 (with further bibliography).

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who, sappho? 193 τίς δ’ ὅδε Ναυσικάᾳ ἕπεται καλός τε μέγας τε ξεῖνος; ποῦ δέ μιν εὗρε; πόσις νύ οἱ ἔσσεται αὐτῇ . . . who is this large and handsome stranger whom Nausikaa has with her, and where did she find him? Surely, he is to be her husband . . . (Od. 6.276–7)

The prominent placement of keinos . . . ottis at the beginning of fr. 31, like its prominent placement at the end of the first stanza at fr. 16, invites us to compare these poems with fr. 1, where a deliberate clashing of narrative and anti-narrative impulses collects around the use of the indefinite or interrogative pronoun. As scholars have shown, tis plays an important supporting role in Homeric narrative, by commenting on the action of the poem either hypothetically or through the voice of the masses in tis-speeches, or in its function as information-gather or reinforcer for the primary narrator. Through the anonymous tis-speeches, Homer is able to reflect on the action from a perspective other than that of the main narrator.42 For Sappho, however, ti and tis indicate a tendency towards the indefinite or the incomplete in her narrative stance.43 As with the elusive ‘someone’ at fr. 129: ἤ τιν’ ἄλλον ἀνθρώπων ἔμεθεν φίλῃσθα (‘or you love some other [more?] than me’), this anonymous other stands on the margins of Sappho’s text, breaking into her world in the form of indefinites and interrogatives, rarely staying, and usually being named, if at all, only after she has left.44 One might also consider in this context the lack of direct objects in Aphrodite’s conditions in fr. 1.45 The girl will soon 42 The closest parallels I can find in Sappho are in frr. 88a (13: . . . ]α̣ι̣ τις εἴποι) ‘someone might say’ and 147: ‘Someone, I say will remember us in the future’ (μνάσεσθαί τινά φαιμι †καὶ ἕτερον† ἀμμέων [Greek text modified following Campbell 1982]). But in general, her use of tis is quite different from Homer’s. On Homer’s use of tis to reflect a different perspective from that of the main narrator, note also Jörgensen’s argument (1904) that the references to divinities by internal narrators within the Homeric poems are non-specific (‘Zeus’, theos, theoi, daimōn, sometimes with tis, e.g., τις δαίμων, τις θεῶν). 43 See further fr. 51.1: οὐκ οἶδ’ ὄττι θέω· δίχα μοι τὰ νοήμματα (‘I do not know what I am to do; I am in two minds’); fr. 58 (17) . . . ἀ]λλὰ τί κεν ποείην; (‘but what could I do?’); fr. 133: Ψάπφοι, τί τὰν πολύολβον Ἀφροδίταν . . . ; (‘Why, Sappho, [do you summon? neglect?] Aphrodite rich in blessings?’). 44 M. L. West 1970: 318 argues that the lover is identified (frr. 16, 49, 94, 95, 96) when ‘either the affair belongs to the past, or Sappho’s attitude towards it is hostile’. See further M. Y. Mueller 2012, on reperformance and kleos. 45 Carson [1980] 1996 argues that the direct object in lines 21–4 is left deliberately unspecified. In other words, it is not Sappho, but some other as yet unnamed girl that this girl will chase, although ἄψ (‘back’) would tend to suggest against this. Cf. Skinner 2002: 89.

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chase whom, give presents to whom, love whom? Sappho or another, new, tis figure standing ready in the wings? The interchangeablility of these girls might speak to the importance of a different kind of flexibility and openness in Sappho’s narrative stance, one that reflects the demands of lyric reperformance, where actors, characters and audience shift depending on the occasion. It is noteworthy that the tis in Odysseus’ conversation with Nausicaa only becomes someone specific when it is combined, in her speech, with the deictic hode in a particular setting.46 The pairing of keinos with tis in Sappho 16 and 31 registers this in a more oblique way, in so far as it acknowledges the mutability of the deictic’s signifier from performance to performance, thus ensuring the poem’s continued viability and existence.47 Sappho’s narrative, in other words, sometimes needs to leave the tis unspecified both in order to confer kleos on itself and to part ways with the kind of kleos that comes through naming in Homer.48 One final poem worth considering, this time in contrast to fr. 1, is fr. 44, which tells of the return of Hector to Troy with Andromache as his new bride. This poem uses a very different method to impart its information from the question and answer format of fr. 1. Instead, Sappho uses the device of a messenger’s speech, spoken by the Iliadic herald Idaeus, to transmit news of two characters who are well named in the poetic tradition and already here stamped by the epic phrase kleos aphthiton (4). Hector and Andromache, whose names are too powerful ever to be unknown or unremembered, appear – like the named Aphrodite and the named Helen – within a short sequence of narrative action involving movement from one place to another (5–8).49 After the festivities have been described, the poem ends with the couple being named one last time, as we would expect for a marriage hymn: ὔμνην δ’ Ἔκτορα κ’Ανδρομάχαν θεοεικέλο[ις. (34). The epic colouring of fr. 44 combines with the narrative stance of the poem itself – that is to say, not only the resolutely named material of epic and myth, but also its status as a marriage hymn. As a marriage plot, the poem’s events are remarkably clear-cut; one particular man will lead to his home one particular girl, and this is an event that 46 As pointed out to me by Irene de Jong. On the importance of deixis in lyric poetry, see esp. Felson 2004; D’Alessio 2004; Athanassaki 2009c. 47 This solves the problem, to some extent, that still lies open in Pindar of the fact that epinician odes were reperformed to new audiences with the name of the original laudandus intact. See further B. Currie 2004; Hubbard 2004; A. D. Morrison 2007b: 11–19. 48 M. L. West 1970 (cf. n. 14); Rawles 2011. 49 Andromache comes from Thebes over the sea, by ship (5–8), thus providing the normative model for a marriage plot.

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should happen only once.50 This marriage plot, which is reversed by Helen in fr. 16 and perhaps parodied in Aphrodite’s chariot ride from her father’s house in fr. 1 (as discussed earlier), fixes on one name and stays with it, unlike the uncountable number of girls that fall under love’s purview in fr. 1. There is something about the nature of erōs, then, that invites a different kind of storytelling; especially different from the storytelling of a marriage song. If fr. 31 has any connection with a wedding song, then what we see there is Sappho precisely undermining its narrative structure through her character’s own markedly different ways of describing and desiring. Fr. 44, on the other hand, presents the story of Andromache’s marriage from an externalised perspective with a clear sequence of events.51 As far as we know, her story is told not as an example of or comparison to someone or something else, which is how Sappho introduces Helen in fr. 16 and Tithonus in the New Sappho, but for its own sake.52 To put it in the simplest terms possible: fr. 44 tells a story of two people, and their names are Hector and Andromache. The single, mythologically freighted event of Andromache’s marriage to Hector contrasts emphatically with the iterative time scheme of erotic love. As the repeated use of δηὖτε (‘now again’) in connection with erōs in archaic love poetry illustrates,53 the act of falling in love requires a different structure for narrative, just as the context of reperformance does too. This reflects in part the ‘double’ or ‘ambiguous’ role of erōs in lyric poetry, as discussed by Rawles in the context of the individual versus the communal singing voice (‘What could be a more convincing way of creating a voice which says “I,” ἐγώ, than to speak of erotic desire . . . Yet at the same time as possessing this individual nature, erōs is for everybody’; Rawles 2011: 154). In Sappho, rather than thinking in terms of singular versus plural singers on a specific occasion, we can think of singular versus plural iterations of the performance itself, as well as (because the two seem to be inextricably linked) the various singular into plural versions of the girl whom Sappho loves. The complications of who in fr. 1 knows what and when, especially when layered onto the notion of different but unspecified occasions for its performance (does the poem indicate 50 I do not mean to imply that the narrative of fr. 44 is simplistic. On Sappho’s sophisticated lyric recasting of epic narrative here, see (among others) Kakridis 1966; Schrenk 1994. 51 As Page has put it of fr. 44: ‘It displays for the first time the talent of Sappho . . . in the art of story-telling’ (1955a: 70, emphasis mine). 52 I am grateful to Seth Schein for this observation. 53 Alcman 59(a)1; Sappho 1.15, 16, 18; 22.11; 83.4; 99.23; 127; 130.1; Anacreon 349.1; 356(a)6; 356(b)1; 358; 371.1; 376.1; 394(b); 400.1; 401.1; 412; 413.1; 428.1. Cf. Carson 1986: 118; Mace 1993; Skinner 2002: 67–68; Bonifazi 2008: 53.

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an original performance in which the audience was in the know and in which the original girl was present?),54 serve to break narrative flow and progression, even as – at the same time – they provide the listener with inconclusive clues with which to trace the poem’s own back-story. The kind of anti-narrative moves that Sappho engages in through her use of tis and ti in the fragments we have looked at in this chapter speak to what is always a lyric possibility, since part of what differentiates lyric as a genre is its stepping aside from the thoroughness of epic narration. Sappho’s specific framing of Aphrodite’s questions in fr. 1 within a set of well-recognised narrative conventions, however, suggests that narrative form is always an important underlier in her construction of lyric, particularly at those moments when we find the promise of a plot subverted or rejected.

54 Ruth Scodel suggests to me that fr. 1 pretends to be a prayer of a kind not normally spoken in public, but which here relies on divine omniscience due to the presence of an eavesdropping audience (cf. Clytemnestra’s prayer to Apollo at Soph. El. 637–59). This would explain Sappho’s vague language in asking Aphrodite to ‘do what I want’. Through this reading, the audience is factored as a character in the plot, who – originally – might have known who the girl was. If we then imagine an original audience in which the girl herself is present, the speech-act shifts from prayer to threat.

10 THE CREATIVE IMPACT OF THE OCCASION: PINDAR’S SONGS FOR THE EMMENIDS AND HORACE’S ODES 1.12 AND 4.2 Lucia Athanassaki Greek melic narratives are on the whole small-scale compositions and as a rule illustrate some aspect of the occasion for which they are composed, which is sometimes specified, sometimes implied and sometimes left totally unclear. In this chapter I focus on the occasion in order to explore the stimulus it offers for the composition of new narratives either for the same or for a related, subsequent occasion. Pindar’s songs for the Emmenids of Acragas will serve as my main test-case because (1) they constitute an interesting sequence of songs which call attention to their occasion, thus allowing assessment of the stimulus it offers; (2) the later songs allude to, rework and creatively integrate the occasions of the earlier songs; (3) the Third Olympian combines two distinct occasions, Theron’s Olympic victory in 476 bc and the periodic celebration of the Theoxenia of the Dioscuri in Acragas; and (4) the Second Olympian is the model for Horace’s Odes 1.12, which offers a precious comparandum for the catalytic role of Greek occasions on narratives. In the following discussion I use the term ‘occasion’ in its broad sense, namely agonistic events, festivals, other celebrations and performance contexts. Epinician songs often treat contests and epinician celebrations as separate events.1 A characteristic example in this category is the much-discussed Tenth Olympian, which opens with a poetic apology for the long time that has lapsed between Hagesidamus’ Olympic victory and the composition of the epinician

Warmest thanks to Ewen Bowie, Peter Agócs and the editors of this volume for helpful suggestions on this version and to the 10th Ephorate of Prehistorical and Classical Antiquities for allowing me to take photographs of the Siphnian treasury on a day when the Delphi Museum was not open to visitors.   1 For epinician sacrifices, performances and banquets see now B. Currie 2011; for accounts of contests see Athanassaki 2012b.

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song.2 At the other end of the spectrum, there are songs that create a continuum between the victory and the epinician performance. The Sixth Pythian, for instance, fashions itself as a processional song that a group of people sing on their way to the temple of Apollo, presumably shortly after the victory, in order to participate in the epinician sacrifice. Pindar’s poetry shows an impressive range of representations of or allusions to several celebratory occasions in one and the same song, so I mention here only one representative example, that is, the Ninth Olympian for the periodonikēs Epharmostus, which offers glimpses of a variety of contests which Epharmostus won. This song, probably composed for performance at Opous, at a local festival in honour of Ajax son of Oileus, distinguishes itself from the Archilochus song that the honorand sang with his hetairoi on their way to the hill of Cronus.3 From the point of view of the present discussion it does not make a great difference whether the variety of occasions that Pindar depicts or alludes to are real or fictive, entirely or partially. I shall not discuss, for instance, whether the Sixth Pythian was actually performed by a group of singers on their way to Apollo’s temple or whether the Third Olympian was actually performed at the Theoxenia or was simply suitable for performance at this festival.4 Such questions are undoubtedly important and have rightly received and continue to attract scholarly attention.5 For the purposes of the present discussion, however, verisimilitude is much more important. All the occasions that are discussed either had or could have hosted epinician events. I shall focus, therefore, on the inscribed occasions and I shall explore their creative impact on the songs in which they are inscribed and on subsequent songs that respond to the same or a different, but related, occasion. The following discussion focuses on four of the six songs Pindar composed for the Emmenids and explores the range of narrative effects that Pindar achieves through the representation, evocation and reworking of several occasions.6 In the first section, ‘Utopias’, I discuss  2 The Tenth Olympian is one of Bundy’s two test cases (Bundy [1962] 1986: 1–33).   3 For the performance context of this ode see Farnell 1930–2: ii.67. For the variety of contests and celebratory occasions see Athanassaki 2012b: 180–6  4 See Σ Οl. 3, 10c and passim. Detailed discussions in Shelmerdine 1987 (arguing for an epinician celebration that evokes a theoxenia); Krummen 1990: 223–36 with references; most recently Ferrari 2012.   5 Comprehensive studies of the locus and context of performance include Gelzer 1985; Krummen 1990; Neumann-Hartmann 2009; Eckerman 2012.  6 Space considerations do not allow detailed discussion of fragments 124ab and 118–19. For the interplay of the occasions of Pythian 6, Isthmian 2 and fr. 124ab see Athanassaki 2012a: 153–5.

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celebratory occasions as a source of inspiration for conjuring up blissful utopias in the two Olympian odes Pindar composed for Theron. In the subsection on ‘The Sixth Pythian and the Second Olympian: Cadmus, Peleus and Achilles in the Isle of the Blessed’, I argue that Pindar cleverly evokes the performance of the Sixth Pythian on the via sacra in order to create links between Peleus-Achilles and XenocratesThrasybulus in a song that foregrounds the achievements and merits of Theron, who is represented as a descendant of another inhabitant of the Isle, Cadmus. Then, in ‘The Third Olympian: Heracles, the Dioscuri and the Hyperboreans’, I explore the poetic innovations by means of which the ceremony at Olympia and the Theoxenia of the Dioscuri are aetiologically linked and conjure up images of eternal happiness in the company of gods. In the following section, ‘Eutopias’, I discuss variant narratives that spring out of the same occasions, but shift the focus from immortality to mortality, human achievements, relations and emotions. In the subsection on ‘The Second Isthmian and the Sixth Pythian: The Pleasures of Day-to-Day Life’, I argue that, in comparison to the Second Olympian, the evocation of the Sixth Pythian in the Second Isthmian has the opposite function, that is, it brings to the surface Xenocrates’ and Thrasybulus’ similar piety, personality, lifestyle and pleasant interaction with people. The Second Isthmian also evokes the Theoxenia, but the emphasis shifts from the Emmenids’ divine guests/hosts to their mortal xenoi. Then, in ‘The Second Isthmian, the Second and Third Olympians and the Role of Nicomachus in the Light of the Fourth and Fifth Pythians’, I examine the puzzling emphasis in the new and totally different account of Theron’s Olympic victory on the charioteer’s excellence. I suggest that the ode probably emphasises friendship and human interaction because Nicomachus, who is at the centre of the narrative, had commissioned the song. In the third section, ‘The Occasion in two Pindarising Odes of Horace (Odes 1.12 and 4.2)’, I take as my starting point Horace’s Odes 1.12, which reworks the Second Olympian but destabilises the occasion, in order to discuss Horace’s handling of the occasion in the Pindarising Odes 4.2 and the thematically similar Odes 4.5 and 3.14. I argue that, unlike Pindar, Horace does not rework or build on past occasions. In the final section, ‘”ὕφαινέ νυν . . . τι καινόν”: The Demands of Greek Performance Culture’, I summarise my conclusions, and I attribute the creative impact of the occasion to the ritual and cultic background of melic compositions and the demands of Greek performance culture for custom-made songs and their innovative narratives.

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The Second Olympian: Cadmus, Peleus and Achilles in the Isle of the Blessed The Second Olympian opens with the famous priamel (‘What god, what hero . . .’), reworked by Horace in Odes 1.12 and with an initial reference to the celebratory occasion, interspersed with gnomes (1–22). The ensuing song consists of two extensive mythological exempla (22–45 and 56–83) separated by a reference to the present and previous celebratory occasions (46–56) and a cluster of transitional gnomes. The ode concludes with an extensive, enigmatic self-referential poetic statement (83–90) and lavish praise of Theron. The performance context of the ode is not specified, but the speaker’s self-exhortation to aim his arrows at Acragas at the closure (89–91), in combination with the opening references to Acragas (6, 9), suggests that it was composed for performance at the honorand’s home town. The ode does not give details about the chariot race, but brief references to the victory in the first strophe and the third antistrophe frame the first genealogical/mythological narrative (3–7, 48–51). In the third antistrophe the speaker mentions the Olympic victory in conjunction with the earlier chariot victories of Theron and his brother Xenocrates at the Pythian and the Isthmian games. This is a bridge that links the first mythological narrative with the second. As I shall argue in a moment, the second exemplum draws its inspiration from the inscribed celebratory occasion of the Sixth Pythian. Before I consider this second narrative, a summary of the first, genealogical narrative is in order. Theron claimed descent from Thersander, son of Polynices.7 Typically, Pindar traces Theron’s Theban ancestry to the remotest past, to the time of Cadmus, through the gnomic analogy of mixed blessings that is characteristic of the lives of the first colonists of Acragas and Cadmus’ daughters. Theron’s genealogy is introduced by a brief account of his ancestors’ arrival on Sicily. They initially suffered much, but subsequently enjoyed wealth and prosperity (7–11). The transition to the sufferings and blessings of Semele and Ino is effected through a cluster of gnomes stating that not even Time can undo what has been done and that sufferings are forgotten when Moira piles up prosperity (15–22). The apotheosis of Semele and Ino illustrates the point. Semele lives on Olympus among the immortals, Ino among the Nereids (22–30). A new cluster of statements shifts the  7 Σ Οl. 2 81a: γίνεται γὰρ Ἀργείας τῆς Ἀδράστου θυγατρὸς καὶ Πολυνείκους, εἰς ὃν ἀναφέρει τὸ γένος ὁ Θήρων.

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focus from immortality to mortality and reiterates the alternation of good and evil, again privileging the predominance of Emmenid happiness and prosperity over suffering. The point is illustrated by the story of the Labdacids, focusing on a series of deaths and one survival: these are represented as yet another dispensation of Moira. Oedipus, the fated son (μόριμος υἱός), killed Laius, thus fulfilling an ancient oracle spoken at Pytho. Sharp-eyed Erinys saw his act and killed his warlike children at each other’s hands. Yet Thersander survived his father Polynices. The survival of Thersander is the first instance of happiness in the doomed family. But it is certainly not the only one, for the poet immediately links him with Theron, whose roots spring from Thersander’s seed. Theron, he continues, must be celebrated with songs and lyres, because he won at Olympia and, together with his brother, at Pytho and Isthmus (46–51). The parallelism between Theron and Thersander is strengthened by the assertion that the latter was an accomplished athlete (43–5). Common theme and diction thus knit tightly together Theron’s fortunes with the fortunes of Cadmus’ daughters, the Labdacids and the first colonists in Acragas.8 Unlike the genealogical narrative, the eschatological narrative that follows after yet another gnome does not at first sight display the close association of myth either with the occasion or with the honorand, unless we view it as Pindar’s response to Theron’s belief in an afterlife, which scholars have almost unanimously assumed, rightly in my view.9 A gnomic statement on the splendour of wealth combined with virtue (53–6), echoing the earlier praise of Acragas’ founders (10–11), introduces the lengthy exposition on the afterlife prospects of three different categories of mankind. Sinners are eternally punished, but good men enjoy a happy existence in Hades (56–60 and 61–7 respectively). A third alternative is introduced in the fourth antistrophe: the prospect of life in the Isle of the Blessed for those who had the courage to live three times in the upper and three times in the lower world. The narration begins with a highly visual description of the landscape and continues with an account of the inhabitants (74–87), which includes the following (78–82):  8 Theron’s descendants: αἰὼν μόρσιμος (11), gnome: πότμῳ σὺν εὐδαίμονι . . .ὅταν θεοῦ Μοῖρα πέμπῃ ὄλβον (18–22) introducing the fate of the daughters of Cadmus, οὕτω δὲ Μοῖρα (35) referring to the Emmenids, μόριμος υἱός (38) ἐν δὲ Πυθῶνι χρησθὲν παλαίφατον τέλεσσεν (39–40) referring to Oedipus. For the significance of Moira in this genealogical narrative see Athanassaki 2009a: 408–13.   9 See, for instance, Farnell 1930–2: i.15–16; Bowra 1964: 23; Lloyd-Jones [1985] 1990; Willcock 1995: 137–40; Torres 2007: 267–369; A. D. Morrison 2012: 126–7. Cf. Nisetich 1988, who privileges poetic immortality; Grethlein 2010: 29–33, who suggests that the Isle of the Blessed illustrates the temporary transcendence one gains through the athletic victory.

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Πηλεύς τε καὶ Κάδμος ἐν τοῖσιν ἀλέγονται· Ἀχιλλέα τ’ ἔνεικ’, ἐπεὶ Ζηνὸς ἦτορ λιταῖς ἔπεισε, μάτηρ· 80 ὃς Ἕκτορα σφᾶλε, Τροίας ἄμαχον ἀστραβῆ κίονα, Κύκνον τε θανάτῳ πόρεν, Ἀοῦς τε παῖδ’ Αἰθίοπα. Peleus and Cadmus are numbered among them and Achilles too, whom his mother brought, after she persuaded the heart of Zeus with her entreaties. He laid low Hector, Troy’s invincible pillar of strength, and gave to death Cycnus and Dawn’s Ethiopian son.10 It is remarkable that of the various fortunate dwellers in the Isle the speaker mentions only three: Cadmus (who was mentioned in the first mythological narrative in connection with his two daughters), Peleus and Achilles. According to Hesiod, the heroes who fought at Thebes and those who fought at Troy went to the Isle of the Blessed.11 The choice of Cadmus makes perfect sense in this ode, and although the tradition of his and Harmonia’s translation to the Isle of the Blessed is first attested in Euripides’ Bacchae (1338–9), the story was probably old and known to Pindar.12 The inclusion of Achilles and Peleus in the Isle and its relevance to Theron’s praise has been much discussed.13 I shall argue for its relevance to Xenocrates and Thrasybulus, but for the moment I draw attention to the clever link Pindar has already created between the families of Cadmus and Peleus, for Ino is said to live in the sea with the daughters of Nereus (μετὰ κόραισι Νηρῆος ἁλίαις, 29). That Ino became a sea-goddess was traditional; Pindar adds a detail that makes the story better fit his immediate purposes. Immediately after the description of Thetis’ translation of Achilles to the Isle of the Blessed, the narrative breaks off abruptly with an enigmatic and much-discussed poetic statement (83–8):14 10 All Pindaric quotations are taken from Snell and Maehler’s edition (1987). The translations are those of William Race (1997a, 1997b) slightly modified. 11 Works and Days 156–73. 12 Farnell 1930–2: ii.21; B. Currie 2005: 44. See also n. 19. 13 For a thorough discussion of Pindar’s divergence from the Odyssey and the Aethiopis and the relevance of Peleus and Achilles to Theron, see Nisetich 1988 with references to earlier literature; Torres 2007: 267–369; for mortality and immortality in Homer and Pindar, see B. Currie 2005: 41–6. 14 This is a notoriously difficult passage. For the range of its different interpretations see Most 1986 and Willcock 1995: 161–2. Most 1986: 316 interprets it as follows: ‘I have many swift arrows under my arm in my quiver that speak to those with understanding and they thoroughly crave oracular announcers. Wise is that

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creative impact of the occasion: pindar and horace 203    πολλά μοι ὑπ’   ἀγκῶνος ὠκέα βέλη 83 ἔνδον ἐντὶ φαρέτρας φωνάεντα συνετοῖσιν· ἐς δὲ τὸ πὰν ἑρμανέων 85 χατίζει. σοφὸς ὁ πολλὰ εἰδὼς φυᾷ·   μαθόντες δὲ λάβροι 86 παγγλωσσίᾳ κόρακες ὣς ἄκραντα γαρυέτων Διὸς πρὸς ὄρνιχα θεῖον· I have many swift arrows under my arm in their quiver that speak to those who understand, but for the whole subject, they need interpreters. Wise is he who knows many things by nature, whereas learners who are boisterous and long-winded are like a pair of crows that cry in vain against the divine bird of Zeus.

I have argued elsewhere that the description of Thetis’ entreaty of Zeus and the mention of Achilles’ duel with Memnon alludes to the East Frieze of the Siphnian treasury in Delphi and to the Sixth Pythian Ode, the self-proclaimed θησαυρὸς ὕμνων that draws its inspiration from the same monument (Fig. 10.1).15 Here I summarise the relevant points. As has already been mentioned, the singers of the Sixth Pythian, composed for Xenocrates’ Pythian victory in the chariot race of 490, locate their performance on the via sacra leading to the temple of Apollo. The central mythological narrative of their song, the duel of Antilochus and Memnon, is a poetic variation on the sculptural theme of the right-hand part of the Siphnian treasury, the duel of Achilles and Memnon, which any viewer on his way to the temple of Apollo saw. In the Second Olympian Pindar offers yet another variation on the sculptural representation of the Siphnian treasury alluding to both parts of the sculptural diptych, both the duel of Achilles and Memnon and their psychostasia, featuring Thetis and Eos imploring Zeus each for her own son. Thus the poet evokes both the earlier song and its inscribed physical surroundings. I have also suggested that, given the familiarity of some at least in Pindar’s announcer who knows many things by nature; but those who have only learned speak out futilities like many-tongued vociferous crows in comparison to the divine bird of Zeus. Now then, spirit, come, aim your bow at the target: whom are we shooting at, casting forth arrows that provide good repute from a welldisposed mind?’ 15 Athanassaki 2009b: 132–46, 2012a. For the identification of the sculptural themes see Brinkmann 1985. K. Shapiro 1988 was the first to draw attention to the points of contact between the mythological narrative of the Sixth Pythian and the East Frieze of the Siphnian treasury.

Figure 10.1  East Frieze of the Siphnian treasury at Delphi: psychostasia of Memnon and Achilles (left); combat of Memnon and Achilles over the dead Antilochus (right)

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creative impact of the occasion: pindar and horace 205 a­ udience with the Delphic sanctuary and with the Sixth Pythian, the poet expected the sunetoi (85) to work out that he was pointing his swift arrows, the ὠκέα βέλη, to Delphi and the earlier celebration.16 I now add that the revival of the memory of that celebratory occasion in the Second Olympian through the explicit mention of the Pythian victory in line 49, attributed to both brothers, and the allusion to a sculptural theme that Pindar had not fully explored in the Sixth Pythian together form the basis of a new mythological account that broadens the scope of the earlier song. In the Sixth Pythian Pindar monumentalised the love and respect that Thrasybulus showed for his father Xenocrates through its parallelism both with the filial piety of Achilles towards Peleus and Thetis and with the self-sacrifice of Antilochus to save Nestor. In the Second Olympian Pindar places Peleus and Achilles in the Isle of the Blessed in the company of a third figure, Cadmus, who links together the two mythological narratives and is represented as Theron’s great ancestor. Before discussing the creative impact of the earlier on the present occasion, I wish to draw attention to the change of direction of the speaker’s arrows at the conclusion of the song (83–100). The eschatological narrative concludes with the mention of Memnon’s death at the hands of Achilles and is immediately followed by the assertion that the speaker has many swift arrows in his quiver that speak to those who understand. In the self-exhortation that follows after stating that wisdom is inborn and clarifying the statement by the image of the divine eagle, the speaker returns to the present occasion (νῦν) and aims his bow at Acragas (ἐπί τοι Ἀκράγαντι τανύσαις, 90–1). This is certainly not the only instance when the epinician speaker aims his arrows at different sites associated with the contests and/or victory celebrations. The Ninth Olympian displays a similar pattern. As has been mentioned, the song opens with reference to the Archilochus song that Epharmostus sang with his friends straight after his victory at Olympia. Immediately afterwards the epinician speaker sets about his present task (ἀλλὰ νῦν, 5), namely to target Zeus and Elis with the arrows from the far-shooting bow of the Muses.17 Simultaneously, however, he shoots another sweet, winged arrow at Pytho (πτερόεντα 16 There is no need to say that Pindar could count on his audience’s knowledge of the Aethiopis, which would provide the necessary background, regardless of their familiarity or not with the Delphic monument. For the Homeric intertexts of the Sixth Pythian, see Kelly 2006. For the first and subsequent performances of the songs for the Emmenids and audiences’ responses, see A. D. Morrison 2007b: 41–57, 84–92. For the various responses of the various groups of sunetoi, see also A. D. Morrison 2012: 127. 17 For the identity of the addressee here, see Farnell 1930–2: ii.68 ad 6.

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δ’ ἵει γλυκὺν Πυθῶνάδ’ ὀιστόν, 11–12), thus also commemorating yet another of Epharmostus’ victories, the one at the Pythia. The only difference between the Ninth and the Second Olympian is that the direction of the swift arrows is not specified in the latter, but is presented as an enigma to be decoded. As I have already suggested, Pindar could reasonably expect the sunetoi, at least Thrasybulus and Xenocrates, to pick up the allusions to the Sixth Pythian and to the Siphnian treasury, in view of the preceding mention of the Emmenid victory at Pytho and the thematic links between the two mythological narratives and the Siphnian monument. Pindar’s ending caveat, ‘upon praise comes tedious excess’, masks the fact that the two mythological narratives have offered Theron more than he could hope for, namely a prominent position in the illustrious, if problematic, Theban line tracing its origin to Cadmus; through the association of Theron with Cadmus, dweller in the Isle of the Blessed, the poet has also opened afterlife prospects for the ruler of Acragas, which were, as already mentioned, in accord with Theron’s belief in an afterlife.18 The association of the Second Olympian with the Sixth Pythian sheds light on Pindar’s narrative invention in placing Achilles and Peleus in the Isle of the Blessed along with Cadmus. In the Sixth Pythian Pindar draws a close parallel between Chiron’s instructions to Achilles to honour his parents for as long as they live and Antilochus’ devotion to his father. Both Pindar and his audience knew, however, that Thetis was immortal and, according to some traditions, Peleus too.19 The reminder of parents’ mortality is clearly more pertinent to children of mortal parents, such as the addressee Thrasybulus, but it also serves as a bridge to the exemplum of Antilochus’ self-sacrifice to save Nestor’s life. We have seen that images of mortality and immortality pervade the Second Olympian too, but the opening image of the genealogical narrative – that is, the apotheosis of Ino and Semele – and the concluding image of the eschatological narrative – Cadmus, Peleus and Achilles at the Isle of the Blessed – clearly privilege immortality over mortality. If Cadmus mirrors Theron, Peleus and Achilles stand for Xenocrates and Thrasybulus. The figure of Cadmus links together two thematically different narratives that reflect and integrate two different occasions. In the Sixth Pythian Pindar likened Thrasybulus and Xenocrates to both Achilles/ Peleus and Antilochus/Nestor in order to illustrate extreme filial 18 For Pindaric utopias, see P. W. Rose 1992: 165–82. 19 In Euripides’ Andromache Thetis tells Peleus that she will make him immortal: κἄπειτα Νηρέως ἐν δόμοις ἐμοῦ μέτα / τὸ λοιπὸν ἤδη θεὸς συνοικήσεις θεᾷ (1257–8).

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devotion to mortal parents. Celebrating Theron’s Olympic victory fourteen years later, he revisited the occasion inscribed in the earlier song in order to create a narrative that would secure a place for the mythical analogues of Xenocrates and Thrasybulus in the Isle of the Blessed, without distracting attention from the praise of Theron. The association of Cadmus with Theron is straightforward. The association of Xenocrates and Thrasybulus with Peleus and Achilles, however, is easier through the evocation of the Sixth Pythian.20 It is for this reason, I suggest, that Pindar revisits the sculptural diptych of the Siphnian treasury’s East Frieze in the Second Olympian. But as in the Sixth Pythian, here too Pindar is not interested in replicating the sculptural representation. The images of Memnon’s death at the hands of Achilles and of the imploring Thetis evoke the Siphnian sculptural diptych and the Sixth Pythian, thus triggering the association of Xenocrates and Thrasybulus with Peleus and Achilles, but the Second Olympian clearly tells a different story. In this song Pindar chooses to focus on the last time Thetis had to implore Zeus for Achilles, no longer in order to save his life but in order to secure his immortality. In this sense, the evocation of the Siphnian monument offers a visual reminder of a similar incident from an earlier point in Achilles’ story, thus emphasising both his own aristeia in the battlefield and his mother’s love and care for him. In the Sixth Pythian and the Second Olympian both brothers are mentioned, but whereas the Pythian ode is primarily a song for Xenocrates and Thrasybulus, the Second Olympian is a lavish song for Theron, tracing his origin all the way back to a most celebrated hero-founder and opening up prospects of an afterlife. In this blissful utopia, Pindar cleverly secures a place for the mythical analogues of Thrasybulus and Xenocrates by the evocation of the earlier song and the monument that stimulated it, and so links them to his mythical narrative. But this is an ἔπος φωνᾶεν only to those who know – those familiar with the Sixth Pythian and its nexus of allusions. Regardless of who in Pindar’s audience would understand what, however, the earlier treatment of Xenocrates’ Pythian victory had given him the idea for the later selection of the inhabitants of the Isle of the Blessed.

20 The association of the three inhabitants of the Isle of the Blessed with the uncle, the father and the son would be less obvious, but still possible, for those who knew or remembered vaguely that Pindar had praised Theron, Xenocrates and Thrasybulus in an earlier song, and for those who had noticed the explicit mention of Xenocrates (ὁμόκλαρον ἐς ἀδελφεόν, 49). Once they made the identification of Xenocrates with Peleus, the identification of Thrasybulus with Achilles was the obvious solution.

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The Third Olympian: Heracles, the Dioscuri and the Hyperboreans Except for the mention of Theron’s victory, the Second Olympian does not offer any glimpses either of the agonistic occasion or of its performance context. In this sense, it is different both from the Sixth Pythian and from the Third Olympian, in which a number of textual indications suggest that the ode was probably composed for performance at the Theoxenia of the Dioscuri in Acragas, but which foregrounds Olympia through the narrative of Heracles’ importation of the olive tree from the Hyperboreans. The Third Olympian also celebrates Theron’s Olympic victory in the chariot race of 476 bc and, as in the Second Olympian, immortality is a predominant theme in this song. The embedded mythological narrative links the immortalised Heracles with the Dioscuri and with the Hyperboreans. The crowning ceremony at Olympia (10–13) is the starting point for the introduction of the mythical story: in pursuit of the golden-antlered doe Heracles had visited the Hyperboreans, where he saw, presumably for the first time, the olive tree. Later, when he founded the Olympic games, he persuaded the Hyperboreans to give him the olive tree, which he planted beside the post at the end of the racecourse at Olympia.21 When Heracles left for Olympus, he made the Dioscuri overseers of the games and the chariot races in particular. The attribution of this role to the Dioscuri is yet another innovation.22 According to the poet, Theron’s victory is a gift of the Dioscuri, for the Emmenids honour them with feasts more than any other mortal. The mention of the xenia of the Dioscuri at the closure of the ode, in combination with the opening prayer to them and Helen, has led to the view that the song was composed for performance at this particular ritual feast. The song links Theron’s Olympic victory tightly together with the Theoxenia in Acragas and with the epinician performance through the innovative narrative associating Heracles, the Hyperboreans and the Dioscuri.23 The celebratory occasion is prominent in this ode, but in comparison with other representations, its reference to the crowning ceremony at Olympia is remarkably vague. Unlike the Fourteenth Olympian, for 21 Pindar is our earliest source for this story; see Farnell 1930–2: i.19–20. For the scholarly debate on whether Heracles travelled once or twice to the Hyperboreans, see Robbins 1982. For Pindar’s challenge to the Athenian claim concerning the provenance of the olive, see Sfyroeras 2003. Cf. Pavlou 2010, who suggests that through the story of the olive tree Pindar links Acragas with Istria, thus highlighting the bliss of the people of Acragas. 22 Farnell 1930–2: ii.29 ad 36. 23 For Pindar’s innovations and the encomiastic effect of the narration of Heracles’ journey, see Köhnken 1983.

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creative impact of the occasion: pindar and horace 209 instance, which concludes with the image of the crowned Asopichus at Olympia, the Second Olympian represents a timeless and unindividualised crowning ceremony of every single victor (ᾧ τινι . . . ἀμφὶ κόμαισι βάλῃ γλαυκόχροα κόσμον ἐλαίας, 11–13), which makes the crowning a blissful utopia analogous to the land of the Hyperboreans of the narrative. Notably, Pindar in this ode depicts the Emmenids as participating in no activities except the periodical feasts of the Dioscuri and other festivals. Thus in addition to the olive crown that links Theron with the Hyperboreans, another link emerges at the close. Like the Hyperboreans, the favourite people of Apollo, who hosted Heracles, the Emmenids host the Dioscuri, appointed by Heracles to oversee the Olympic games, who in turn host the other gods, the Emmenids and the other participants in the ritual feast at Acragas.24 EUTOPIAS The Second Isthmian and the Sixth Pythian: The Pleasures of Day-to-Day Life

Some years later, after the death of Xenocrates and probably of Theron too, Pindar comes back to the issue of mortality which he had explored in his earliest song for the Emmenids. As in the Sixth Pythian, the addressee of the Second Isthmian Ode is Thrasybulus. The ode offers a catalogue of the Emmenid victories at the Isthmia, Pythia, Panathenaea and Olympia. The song is unlikely to celebrate an Isthmian victory, since the Isthmian success receives much less attention than the Panathenaic and Olympic victories. Various scenarios have therefore been advanced concerning the occasion.25 The Second Isthmian is a song about the past. Given that the ode records a number of victories and an encomium of Xenocrates’ personality and achievements, all that can be said is that it was composed for a memorial event that Thrasybulus was planning in Acragas. The list of victories concludes with a general picture of the frequent epinician celebrations and music at the family’s houses in Acragas (30–4). This is at once a natural conclusion to the list of victories and 24 For the theoxenic ritual see Farnell 1930–2: i.19–20. 25 Anniversary of the Isthmian revised after Xenocrates’ death: Bury 1892: 33–4; Farnell 1930–2: ii.342–3. In favour of a memorial event see, for instance, Woodbury 1968; Nisetich 1978; Kurke 1991: 240–56. Wilamowitz 1922: 311–12, building on the ancient scholia (Σ I. 2, 9a, 9b and 15a), argued for a poetic epistle expressing Pindar’s annoyance that Simonides was engaged for the ode c­ elebrating Xenocrates’ Isthmian victory.

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a preface to the account of Xenocrates’ lifetime that immediately follows: μακρὰ δισκήσαις ἀκοντίσσαιμι τοσοῦθ’, ὅσον ὀργάν 35 Ξεινοκράτης ὑπὲρ ἀνθρώπων γλυκεῖαν ἔσχεν. αἰδοῖος μὲν ἦν ἀστοῖς ὁμιλεῖν, ἱπποτροφίας τε νομίζων   ἐν Πανελλάνων νόμῳ· 38 καὶ θεῶν δαῖτας προσέ  πτυκτο πάσας· οὐδέ ποτε ξενίαν 39 οὖρος ἐμπνεύσαις ὑπέστειλ’ ἱστίον ἀμφὶ τράπεζαν· 40 ἀλλ’ ἐπέρα ποτὶ μὲν Φᾶσιν θερείαις, ἐν δὲ χειμῶνι πλέων Νείλου πρὸς ἀκτάν. May I make a long throw with the discus and cast the javelin as far as Xenocrates surpassed all men with his sweet disposition. He was respectful in the company of his townsmen, he practiced horse-breeding in the Panhellenic tradition and welcomed all feasts of the gods. And never did an oncoming wind cause him to furl the sails at his hospitable table, but he would travel to Phasis in summer seasons, while in winter he would sail to the shore of the Nile. The emphasis of Xenocrates’ posthumous praise is on his day-to-day life and interaction with people, both his townsmen and his xenoi. The praise begins with a general assessment of his personality, that is, his sweet disposition towards people in general, and continues with the respect he enjoyed from his townsmen. The account continues with his devotion to hippotrophia, an activity in which he obviously found pleasure, but which also gave pleasure to others as an agonistic spectacle. A few lines earlier Pindar used the phrase κλειναῖς Ἐρεχθειδᾶν χαρίτεσσιν ἀραρώς to designate Xenocrates’ Panathenaic victory, thus capturing the spectators’ reactions and the pleasure of the games.26 Xenocrates’ observance of the feasts of all gods echoes the performance context of the Third Olympian. In keeping with this song’s focus on human interaction, however, the picture of Xenocrates’ hospitality now privileges his entertainment of mortal guests. The attention to Xenocrates’ personal qualities and modus vivendi is reminiscent of the similar emphasis on Thrasybulus’ qualities and 26 I discuss this passage in more detail in Athanassaki 2012b: 199.

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creative impact of the occasion: pindar and horace 211 style at the closure of the Sixth Pythian.27 Thrasybulus’ encomium begins with his devotion to Xenocrates and his splendour, which rivals Theron’s splendour. Immediately afterwards, the poet offers a few examples of Thrasybulus’ day-to-day behaviour: he is rich, but manages his wealth intelligently; he is young, but not overbearing; he loves music and horse-races. Pindar gives here a twist to the subject of hippotrophia: Thrasybulus’ passion for horse-races pleases Poseidon, a statement that resonates with the much-praised piety of the Emmenids. The last image leads the eye to the symposium, where Thrasybulus’ sweet manner towards his fellow-drinkers is comparable to that his father. Like the Sixth Pythian, the Second Isthmian pays great attention to human interaction and emotions. Unsurprisingly, it ends with allusions to the earlier song: μή νυν, ὅτι φθονεραὶ   θνατῶν φρένας ἀμφικρέμανται ἐλπίδες, 43 μήτ’ ἀρετάν ποτε σιγάτω πατρῴαν, μηδὲ τούσδ’ ὕμνους· ἐπεί τοι 45 οὐκ ἐλινύσοντας αὐτοὺς ἐργασάμαν. ταῦτα, Νικάσιππ’, ἀπόνειμον, ὅταν ξεῖνον ἐμὸν ἠθαῖον ἔλθῃς. Therefore, since envious hopes hang about the minds of mortals, let the son never keep silent his father’s excellence nor these hymns, for I truly did not fashion them to remain stationary. Impart these words to him, Nicasippus, when you visit my honourable host. Pindar claimed in the Sixth Pythian that his poetic treasure-house of song would endure the assaults of nature much better and much longer than a physical monument (he was, of course, correct). In his last song for the Emmenids, however, the poet points out another difference, that is, the mobility of song versus the immobility of monumental sculpture, and urges Thrasybulus to keep reperforming the songs so as to ensure that his father’s virtues will remain alive in people’s memory. The two assessments of the difference between poetry and monumental sculpture are complementary. 28 27 The similarities between the two descriptions are noted by Bury 1892: 32; see now Clear 2012: 190–1. 28 For Pindar’s views on the relation of poetry to the visual arts see Athanassaki 2012a: 156 with the references in n. 55.

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We have seen that the Siphnian treasury also provided the inspiration for the inclusion of Xenocrates’ and Thrasybulus’ mythical analogues, Peleus and Achilles, in the Isle of the Blessed in the Second Olympian. Yet, despite the dialogue of the two songs, the Second Isthmian does not conjure up a utopia. It focuses exclusively on human deeds, achievements, emotions and mortality. Like the Sixth Pythian, the only immortality it promises is the immortality of song. Pindar’s urge to Thrasybulus to keep the songs alive as an antidote to people’s envy shows that his concern is the commemoration of Xenocrates’ fame among the living through the song, with its summary narrative of Xenocrates’ way of life and catalogue of victories. The Second Isthmian, the Second and Third Olympians and the Role of Nicomachus in the Light of the Fourth and the Fifth Pythians In the Second and Third Olympians Pindar looked far beyond the competition venue. In contrast, the Second Isthmian, in keeping with its focus on human achievements and emotions, offers a narrative of the chariot race and the charioteer, Nicomachus:   κλειναῖς Ἐρεχθειδᾶν χαρίτεσσιν ἀραρώς ταῖς λιπαραῖς ἐν Ἀθάναις, οὐκ ἐμέμφθη 20 ῥυσίδιφρον χεῖρα πλαξίπποιο φωτός, τὰν Νικόμαχος κατὰ καιρὸν   νεῖμ’ ἁπάσαις ἁνίαις· 22 ὅν τε καὶ κάρυκες ὡ  ρᾶν ἀνέγνον, σπονδοφόροι Κρονίδα 23 Ζηνὸς Ἀλεῖοι, παθόντες πού τι φιλόξενον ἔργον· ἁδυπνόῳ τέ νιν ἀσπάζοντο φωνᾷ 25 χρυσέας ἐν γούνασιν πίτνοντα Νίκας γαῖαν ἀνὰ σφετέραν,   τὰν δὴ καλέοισιν Ὀλυμπίου Διός 27 ἄλσος· ἵν’ ἀθανάτοις Αἰνησιδάμου παῖδες ἐν τιμαῖς ἔμιχθεν. καὶ γὰρ οὐκ ἀγνῶτες ὑμῖν ἐντὶ δόμοι 30 οὔτε κώμων, ὦ Θρασύβουλ’, ἐρατῶν, οὔτε μελικόμπων ἀοιδᾶν. and when he gained the glorious favour of Erechtheus’ descendants in shining Athens, he had no cause to blame the chariotpreserving hand, which the horse-striking man Nicomachus applied fittingly to all the reins and whom the heralds of the seasons also recognised, the Eleian truce-bearers of Cronus’ son

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creative impact of the occasion: pindar and horace 213 Zeus, surely having experienced some act of hospitality, and they welcomed him with a sweetly breathing voice, when he fell on the knees of golden Victory in their land, the one men call Olympian Zeus’ sanctuary. There the sons of Aenesidamus were joined to immortal honours. And so, your family houses are not unfamiliar with delightful victory revels, O Thrasybulus, nor with songs of honey-sweet acclaim.

This is the first time in the Emmenid song-sequence that their victory at the Panathenaea receives explicit mention.29 We also learn the name of the victorious charioteer, Nicomachus, who drove the Emmenids’ chariot in Athens and at Olympia. In this down-to-earth song Pindar first paints a vivid agonistic image, zooming in on the charioteer’s hands and the skill with which they handled the reins. The diction (χαρίτεσσιν ἀραρώς) reflects the delight which the judges and the spectators experienced at the supreme athletic performance of Xenocrates’ chariot. Xenocrates, the proclaimed victor, is represented as the recipient of charis, but the details of Nicomachus’ skilful driving imply that it was the spectacle of the fast and skilfully driven horses that elicited the delight of the watching crowd at the Panathenaea. The theme of charis persists in the following description of Nicomachus’ reception at Olympia, which focuses on his friendship with the Elean heralds and their emotional reaction at his victory.30 Like Xenocrates and Thrasybulus, Nicomachus was evidently hospitable. The Eleans’ warm reception of him after his victory is therefore related both to his personal ties and to his supreme athletic performance. Pindar pays lip service to Theron by attributing the Olympic victory to both brothers, but on the whole this is a song about Xenocrates, Thrasybulus and Nicomachus, who, mutatis mutandis, are represented as like-minded men: they are horse-lovers, they are hospitable, they are popular with the people. We can only guess why Pindar mentions Theron in passing, but the most convincing explanation is that Theron was no longer alive, for otherwise it is hard to explain how Pindar imagined even a sympotic performance of a song that had so little to say about Theron, who was the Olympic victor, Thrasybulus’ uncle and tyrant of Acragas.31 Why Pindar chose to foreground Nicomachus’ role is not an easy question, but the two Pythian songs for Arcesilas of Cyrene, celebrating his Pythian victory 29 The reference to Athenian cups in Thrasybulus’ symposium in fr. 124ab, 4 must be an allusion to Xenocrates’ Panathenaic victory. 30 More detailed discussion in Athanassaki 2012b: 197–202. 31 Most scholars date the ode after Theron’s death; see for instance Wilamowitz 1922: 310–11; Bowra 1964: 124–6. Cf. Von der Mühl 1964: 170, who does not

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in 462, offer a useful comparandum that can elucidate the poetic choice.32 The Fourth and the Fifth Pythian Odes, composed for a colonial ruler too, display praise strategies similar to the ones Pindar opted for in the two Olympian Odes and the Second Isthmian. The Fourth Pythian was probably commissioned by the political exile Damophilus as a token of gratitude to Arcesilas IV for their reconciliation and his imminent return to Cyrene.33 Its performance, initially anchored in the nunc (σάμερον, 1), is projected into the future at the close, where the epinician speaker envisages Damophilus telling Arcesilas about the spring of immortal words that he found in Thebes, where he recently spent time as a guest (298–9). Almost twelve of the ode’s thirteen triads are devoted to the mythical foundation and the historical colonisation of Cyrene. Pindar projects the mythical foundation in illud tempus, during the brief stay of the Argonauts in Libya on their way back from Colchis, and links it to the historical colonisation by means of the interlocking oracles of Medea and the Pythia. The poet mythicises the notorious difficulties and delays of the historical colonisation, which are reported in Herodotus’ painstaking account in Book 4. Through the magical voyage of a clod of earth, given by Triton to the Argonaut Euphamus, from lake Tritonis to Thera and to Taenarum, Pindar tightly weaves the threads that link Arcesilas IV with Battus I, the Minyans and the Argonaut Euphamus.34 The Fourth Pythian shares with the Second Olympian the tendency to connect Arcesilas IV and Theron closely with mythical founders, Euphamus and Cadmus respectively, while attributing problems and misfortunes to divine plan. Pindar may have treated the Argonautic myth as the beginning of heaven-sent honours to the Cyreneans, but the Fourth Pythian does not contain a utopia compara

(footnote 31 continued) think there is anything in this song suggesting Theron’s death and dates the ode to the mid-470s. 32 Cf. Nicholson 2005: 64–76 for a totally different reading of the occasion and Nicomachus’ role. According to Nicholson (1) the occasion of composition was Xenocrates’ Isthmian victory; (2) Nicomachus was not an aristocrat, although Pindar represents him as such through the mention of his xenia with the Eleans, but at the closure of the ode he is ‘reduced to the status of a servant’ (2005: 75); after driving Theron’s chariot he probably became famous ‘and he was thus perhaps included in Isthmian 2 because Xenocrates wanted the Olympic victory won by his brother to be mentioned but felt that the Emmenids could not be convincingly praised for the victory without some credit being given to the charioteer who secured it’ (76). See, however, n. 44. For a view of Nicomachus' role in some ways closer to mine, see Bell 1995. 33 See Braswell 1988: 3–6. 34 Discussions of the colonial narrative include Segal 1986; Calame 1990, 2003; Dougherty 1993; Athanassaki 2003.

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ble to the Isle of the Blessed or the land of the Hyperboreans.35 In the Fifth Pythian, however, which focuses on the historical colonisation and Apollo as archagete, healer and god of music, Arcesilas ‘appears with traits of a second Apollo through the intermediary of his ancestor Battus, the founder of Cyrene’, as Claude Calame observes.36 The Fifth Pythian, composed in all likelihood for performance at the Cyrenean Carneia, has interesting similarities both with the Third Olympian and with the Second Isthmian.37 We have seen that in the Third Olympian Pindar attributes the Emmenid victory at Olympia to the Dioscuri, appointed overseers of the Olympic games by Heracles and hosts of gods and men at the theoxenic feast, thus linking the epinician celebration with the Theoxenia. In similar manner, Pindar associates Arcesilas’ Pythian victory and the Carneia, but the association is more straightforward in this case, because Apollo is the patron god of the Pythian games and the honorand of the Cyrenean festival. The difference between the Third Olympian and the Fifth Pythian is that the Pythian song is a down-to-earth song that gives plenty of room to the celebration of human achievements and the expression of emotions. In this sense, it is similar to the Second Isthmian. The two festive occasions of the Fifth Pythian are synchronised through the reception of the kōmos and the victor (22, 29, 52–3). A great part of the song is dedicated to the praise of the charioteer Carrhotus, Arcesilas’ hetairos and, according to the scholiast, brotherin-law. Carrhotus is praised for his skill and bravery and for the dedication of the victorious chariot at Delphi (27–53). His fearlessness at the sight of forty charioteers falling off their chariots, which enabled him to win, receives special mention. Like Nicomachus, Carrhotus has xenia ties with the Delphians (ὕδατι Κασταλίας ξενωθεὶς, 31). But in the case of Carrhotus Pindar chooses to mention not the response of the Delphians to his achievement, but the warm reception he deserves in Cyrene. Addressing the king, the epinician speaker tells him that he should give credit to Apollo for his victory and cherish Carrhotus above all his hetairoi (φιλεῖν δὲ Κάρρωτον ἔξοχ’ ἑταίρων), an exhortation which is repeated a little later (ἑκόντι τοίνυν πρέπει/ νόῳ τὸν εὐεργέταν ὑπαντιάσαι, 43–4).38 35 Pindar’s main interest in this ode is to tie closely together the historical with the mythical colonisation; see Calame 1990; Athanassaki 2003 with references. 36 Calame 2003: 86; see also B. Currie 2005: 226–57. 37 The majority of scholars think that the Carneia was the performance context. See Krummen 1990: 108–16 for a detailed discussion. This view has now been challenged by Ferrari 2012: 170–2. 38 Detailed discussion of the emotional attitude towards Carrhotus in this ode in Athanassaki 2012b: 192–7.

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There are clearly differences in the description of the reception of the two charioteers that are due to the different occasion of each song. The Second Isthmian is a song about the past, honouring the victories and the ēthos of the dead Xenocrates. In this memorial song, Pindar projects the warm reception of Nicomachus to the past and to the competition venue. The Fifth Pythian, on the other hand, represents a celebration as it unfolds in the here and now. The love and the gratitude that Arcesilas and the Cyreneans owe to Carrhotus are therefore represented as the proper response during the celebration in full swing. I have argued elsewhere that the function of such descriptions, regardless of their representations as past, present or future emotional responses, is to shape the proper emotional attitude towards victors, which is reactivated at every new performance of a song.39 If Thrasybulus were to heed Pindar’s advice to reperform the Second Isthmian, for instance, every reperformance would both revive the memory of the warm reception of Nicomachus at Olympia and guide the audience’s proper emotional response to the charioteer. The other important difference has to do with the status of the two charioteers and their relation with the honorands. Carrhotus enjoyed the friendship of the king and high status in Cyrenean politics.40 According to the ancient scholiast drawing on Theotimus, probably a Hellenistic local historian, Carrhotus also had an important political mission in Greece, namely to lure new colonists for the Euesperides.41 We have seen that Pindar designates him as Arcesilas’ hetairos who, presumably at the king’s instructions or with his consent, dedicated the victorious chariot to Apollo.42 He may have also been the intermediary in the reconciliation of the exile Damophilus with Arcesilas, who was Pindar’s guest at Thebes. A possible scenario is that Carrhotus suggested to Damophilus the commissioning of the Fourth Pythian as a display of his gratitude to the king for his agreed-upon return, and made a similar gesture himself by asking Pindar to compose the Fifth Pythian for performance at the Carneia. An alternative scenario is that Damophilus had the idea of commissioning the ode and introduced Pindar to Carrhotus, who seized the opportunity and commissioned the Fifth Pythian. These are hypotheses, of course, but they offer an answer to the question of who the link between Pindar and the king of Cyrene was, and they explain the prominence of the two Cyrenean men and their interaction with the king in the two songs 39 Athanassaki 2012b. 40 For Carrhotus’ political status and role in Cyrene see B. Currie 2005: 250–2; Nicholson 2005: 46–7 with references. 41 Σ P. 5.34 Theotimus FGrH 479 FI. 42 For the political significance of the dedication see B. Currie 2005: 252–4.

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respectively.43 It is worth noting that in the Fourth Pythian there is no mention of Carrhotus, while in the Fifth Pythian there is no mention of Damophilus. The prominence of Nicomachus in the Second Isthmian can be explained by a similar hypothesis. Pindar does not mention him in any of the other songs for the Emmenids. The most plausible scenario is, in my view, that it was Nicomachus who asked Pindar to compose the ode in honour of a dead friend for a memorial event in Acragas. This is why Pindar praises Nicomachus by narrating details of his driving and hospitality, exactly as he praised Damophilus and Carrhotus in the Pythian odes for Arcesilas. But whatever Nicomachus’ role was, there can be no doubt that he was a friend of Thrasybulus and Xenocrates, for otherwise it is hard to see how Pindar could have included him in a memorial song for Xenocrates addressed to Thrasybulus. Pindar’s emphasis on his xenia to the Elean heralds places him in the same aristocratic network to which his Cyrenean patrons also belonged.44 We know nothing about Nicasippus, whom Pindar asks to convey the song to Thrasybulus. His name probably points to his being upper-class, as the compound -hippos suggests.45 His mission indicates that he was a common friend, perhaps one of Thrasybulus’ fellow symposiasts, whom Pindar mentioned more than once. Pindar must have sent a number of his songs through friends, but he rarely mentions them.46 Why does he mention Nicasippus, especially if it was Nicomachus who commissioned the song? The simplest answer is that Nicasippus’ name conveyed what Nicomachus knew how to do best. 43 We know remarkably little about the mechanisms of commission in the archaic and early classical period. See the recent discussions in Pelliccia 2009; Bowie 2012. 44 Cf. Nicholson 2005: 65–6, who advances three arguments against the aristocratic status of Nicomachus: (1) Pindar does not supply a patronymic; (2) the scholia do not provide any indication of his aristocratic status; and (3) Pindar does not mention him in the Second and Third Olympians. None of these arguments is compelling, because (1) Pindar does not supply the patronymic of his guest-friend Damophilus in the Fourth Pythian, but he was in all likelihood an aristocrat; (2) the scholia to this ode show confusion, as for instance concerning the relationship between Thrasybulus and Xenocrates: see Farnell 1930–2: ii.342; and (3) Pindar does not mention Carrhotus in the Fourth Pythian, which celebrates the same victory as the Fifth Pythian. All we know about Nicomachus is what Pindar tells us about him, namely that he was a xenos of the Eleans, as Carrhotus was in Delphi (ὕδατι Κασταλίας ξενωθεὶς) and Damophilus in Thebes (Θήβᾳ ξενωθεὶς). 45 This widely attested name from all over the Greek world, especially from the fourth century onward, has entries in all published volumes of the Lexicon of Greek Personal Names. 46 Some have thought that Nicasippus’ role is to supervise the performance of the ode, like, for instance, Aeneas at Olympian 6.87. See Verdenius 1988: 146; Thummer 1969 ad loc. Cf. Bell 1995, for Nicasippus as a simple word-play on Nicomachus.

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Addressing the postman who happened to have a convenient speaking name is probably a clever reminder of Nicomachus’ contribution at the closure of the ode, without distracting attention from Xenocrates’ areta, which Thrasybulus is urged to keep alive.47 The exhortation to performance and reperformance by the patron is unique in Pindar’s epinicians and makes more sense if it was not Thrasybulus who commissioned the song, but Nicomachus.48 The Second Isthmian conjures up images of symposia and festivals, but does not anchor its performance in any particular venue. The final exhortation suggests that Thrasybulus should seize any opportunity to keep Xenocrates’ memory alive. Thus whether it was Nicomachus or Pindar composing on his own initiative or even at Thrasybulus’ request, the Second Isthmian is a song about past occasions which are now recreated in order to bring out a different aspect of these occasions, namely the value and the range of shared experience; for instance, erōs as a stimulus for artistic creativity, the pleasures of watching a great sporting event, comastic celebrations, friendship, singing and feasting. In this memorial song the past celebratory occasions do not offer the inspiration for yet another innovative mythical narrative echoing the earlier ones, but provide instead colourful threads from which to weave a new story that reinterprets the impact of great achievements in human terms. Interestingly, however, the shift of focus from stories about the fortunes of blessed heroes to a story of human accomplishments and relations produces a comparably idealised narrative, which, without losing sight of the human condition, negative behaviour and emotions (in particular death, envy and fair-weather friendship), privileges the positive side, as the mythical narratives of the earlier songs do. Thus, as the narrative of Antilochus’ self-sacrifice in the Sixth Pythian brings out his filial piety and not Nestor’s bereavement and sorrow, the narrative of the Second Isthmian focuses on people’s happy interaction with Xenocrates and not on Thrasybulus’ pain at his death. The Second Olympian’s first mythical narrative illustrates how ill-fortune can lead to prosperity and even immortality. Similarly, the Second Isthmian acknowledges in passing the existence of fair-weather friends and the danger of envy, but focuses on and explores the various manifestations of charis through action and song. From a narratological point of view it is remarkable that both utopic and eutopic narratives spring from the 47 Cf. Nisetich 1978: 147–8, who interprets Pindar’s play on Nicasippus’ name as a good omen for Thrasybulus’ future equestrian victories. 48 The only other similar exhortation is found in Nemean 5.1–4, but it is addressed to Pindar’s song.

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creative impact of the occasion: pindar and horace 219 same two occasions: the Emmenids’ victories at Pytho and Olympia. THE OCCASION IN TWO PINDARISING ODES OF HORACE (ODES 1.12 AND 4.2)

In this section I shall discuss very briefly Horace’s handling of the occasion in Odes 1.12 and 4.2, which honour Augustus and establish direct dialogue with Pindar. Odes 1.12 is particularly relevant to our discussion, because it begins with a Latin translation of the opening of the Second Olympian in reverse order (‘quem virum, aut heroa lyra vel acri tibia sumis celebrare, Clio? quem deum?’, 1–3) and proceeds with a long catalogue of gods, heroes and men. The catalogue reverses this order and starts off with gods (Jupiter, Athena, Bacchus, Artemis and Apollo, 13–24). It continues first with Greek immortalised heroes (Hercules and the Dioscuri, 25–32) and then with Roman heroes and men (Romulus, Numa, Tarquin, Cato the Younger, Regulus, Marcus Aemilius Scaurus, Lucius Aemilius Paulus, Fabricius, Curius, Camillus, Marcus Claudius Marcellus and Julius Caesar, 33–48). At the end of the catalogue, Horace addresses Jupiter once again and concludes the poem with a prayer to Jupiter to help Augustus. According to Nisbet and Hubbard, Horace accomplishes little more than a catalogue of Greek and Roman gods, heroes and men: ‘though Horace shows some ingenuity in linking diverse elements, he does not succeed in fusing them; they exist in unhappy juxtaposition; the catalogues of gods and men, though sanctioned by Greek hymns and republican oratory, lack colour and effective unity’.49 In comparison to the Second Olympian, which is Horace’s primary model, the lack of unity that these two scholars notice is due, in my view, to the fact that, unlike Pindar, Horace does not choose to forge any close links between these heroes and Augustus beyond, of course, the general theme of exemplary behaviour.50 The only links that are reminiscent of Pindar’s Theban genealogy are found in the mention of the shining Julian star (‘micat inter omnis Iulium sidus’, 46–7) and the growing fame of Marcus Claudius Marcellus (‘crescit . . . fama Marcelli’, 45–6), great ancestor of Augustus’ son-in-law. From the point of view of the present discussion, the important difference is that Odes 1.12 does not establish or even point to any specific occasion any more than it presents any real narrative. The penultimate stanza points to a variety of victories in faraway places, 49 Nisbet and Hubbard 1970: 145. 50 For Horace’s other lyric intertexts in this ode, see Lowrie 1995.

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which could be the occasions of several odes. All the speaker asks Jupiter at the end of the ode is to grant victories to Augustus so that he can rule a peaceful world, since he is second only to the god. Horace was a very sensitive and creative reader of Greek lyric.51 The absence of a specific occasion in a poem that enters into direct dialogue with Pindar is, in my view, intentional and the ode an experiment. I envisage Horace asking himself if he could compose in the manner of Pindar for no special occasion. The result is a loose catalogue. This insight is supported by Horace’s extensive reference to Heracles and the Dioscuri in the heart of the ode. The extensive reference to the Dioscuri has puzzled David West, who posed the question and answered it as follows: Why do Castor and Pollux, the junior members of this cast [that is of warlike Greek gods and heroes], receive the longest billing [. . .]? Here this eighth stanza of fifteen is a peaceful interlude between the Greek of the first half and the Roman of the second and the transition is marked by a transition from the Greek Muse Clio in line 2 in her three Greek mountains to the Italian Muse Camena in line 39 of the Latin.52 This is a fair assessment. I only wish to add that at the moment when Horace leaves Clio behind in order to listen to Camena, he alludes to the other grand song that Pindar composed for Theron, the Third Olympian, which, as we have seen, links together two festive occasions through Heracles and the Dioscuri. In typical manner, Horace does not replicate Pindar’s innovative narrative, which is thematically irrelevant for his own purposes, but the allusion to the Third Olympian cannot be accidental in an ode beginning with an unmistakable evocation of its sister ode. What Horace seems to say to those who knew their Pindar is something along the lines of ‘I know what Pindar is up to, but let me try another path.’ Interestingly, in Odes 4.2, which starts with an elaborate Pindarising recusatio about the danger of emulating Pindar, Horace responds to an occasion similar, mutatis mutandis, to the occasions that Pindar had handled frequently, that is, the return of Augustus to Rome in 13 bc after several years of absence.53 Horace’s Odes 4.2 captures 51 See Fraenkel 1957: 154–214 and passim; see also the more recent contributions in Paschalis 2002. 52 D. West 1995: 58. 53 Odes 4.2 has been much discussed; see in particular Fraenkel 1957: 432–40; Putnam 1986: 48–62; Johnson 2004: 45–51; R. F. Thomas 2011: 101–2. I discuss

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the atmosphere of preparations for the reception of the emperor. It was evidently composed when the news of Augustus’ return reached Rome, but the precise date of composition is unknown. It is addressed to Iullus Antonius, praetor in 13 and member of the imperial family through marriage, who may have encouraged Horace to write a Pindaric ode for Augustus’ return. Horace refuses politely, and suggests that Iullus should compose the grand poem for the reception of the emperor, which Horace imagines as a triumph. The singer of this future magnificent narrative of Augustus’ triumph, games and celebrations in his honour will thus be Iullus (concines, 33, 41). As for Horace’s role, he envisages himself as part of the jubilant crowd. Like any ordinary soldier, he will sing the versus quadratus ‘o sol pulcher, o laudande’ and, like every other citizen, he will shout ‘Io Triumphe’. Augustus did not choose to celebrate the triumph Horace envisages in this ode. Horace probably composed the poem in ignorance of Augustus’ plans. But he may have decided to create a fictive occasion, even if he knew or suspected that the emperor would not opt for a triumph, since he must have known Augustus’ deliberate avoidance of jubilant crowds.54 In the case of Pindar, in most instances we have no independent evidence from which to judge whether the inscribed celebrations are fictitious, and if so to what extent. But several of his epinicians contain conflicting signs which suggest that, like Horace, Pindar also opted for fictional celebrations on occasion. Fictional or not, however, Pindaric occasions inform and shape subsequent, related occasions to a greater or lesser degree. Comparison of Odes 4.2 with the thematically related 4.5 does not show the creative interaction of related celebratory occasions that characterises Pindaric narratives. In 4.5 Horace expresses his longing for the return of Augustus after his long absence in Gaul and Spain in the years 16–13 bc. References to the Germanic tribes that keep Augustus away are blended with references to other enemies, such as the Scythians and the Parthians (25–8), thus broadening the scope of the ‘occasion’. This is in keeping with the generalising tendency of the poem: the constant longing of the people and the patria for the emperor is attributed to the prosperity, safety, morality, law and order that Augustus’ presence unexceptionally guarantees. What links Horace’s refusal to praise Augustus in the manner of Pindar in more detail in Athanassaki forthcoming. 54 Cassius Dio 54.25; Suetonius, Aug. 89. Horace would have known, of course, that Augustus had refused to celebrate a triumph after his successful campaign in Spain in 24; see Nisbet and Rudd 2004: 180. See also Wallace-Hadrill 1982: 40, who points out that the rarity of such public celebrations made them gala occasions. Detailed discussion in Athanassaki forthcoming.

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this poem to 4.2, except of course the theme of absence and return, is Horace’s voice, which becomes one with the voice of common people wishing that the emperor grant them long holidays. Interestingly, this is a wish that they express day and night (4.5.37–40). The conclusion of the ode makes clear that Horace gives voice to people’s constant wish over a long period of time, that is, from the moment Augustus left till the moment of his return. Odes 4.5 certainly complements 4.2, but does not interact with its occasion. Odes 3.14 focuses on the imminent return of Caesar from Spain in 24 bc.55 In 3.14 the speaker casts himself initially in the role of the master of ceremonies, who instructs Livia to perform sacrifices and then, together with Octavia, head a suppliant procession of Roman matrons. This day will be festal for him too, because he fears no civil strife or violent death as long as Augustus holds the earth (‘tenente Caesare terras’, 15–16). The speaker will spend this carefree day at a symposium, hopefully in the company of Neaera. The theme of safety under Augustus’ rule, reiterated more elaborately in 4.5, links of course the return of Augustus in 24 bc with his return in 13 bc. But unlike Pindar, Horace does not draw either on the occasion or the inscribed celebration in 3.14 in his later odes. The theme of Augustus’ return in 24 bc and the envisaged festivities in 3.14 neither inform nor shape the representation of the celebrations for his return in 13 bc, as described in 4.2. The peace and prosperity that Augustus’ rule guarantees is a common, all-pervasive theme in all the poems for Augustus. In other words, it is not the occasion but the individual who is represented as the source of happiness and prosperity, and the disappearance of the specific occasion also means the disappearance of narrative. “῾ύφαινέ νυν . . . τι καινόν”: THE DEMANDS OF GREEK PERFORMANCE CULTURE Through detailed discussion of the representation of epinician occasions in the Emmenid sequence, I have explored the range of opportunities Pindar saw in any single occasion. I have argued that Pindar mined Xenocrates’ Pythian victory in order (1) to create in the Sixth Pythian a narrative analogue of the monumental sculptures representing filial devotion; (2) to generate a narrative that places Peleus and Achilles in the company of Cadmus, so as not to exclude Xenocrates and Thrasybulus from the blissful utopia he created for Theron in the Second Olympian; and (3) to revive the memory of these poetic representations in the Second Isthmian, which, however, shifts the 55 For this poem see D. West 2002: 126–32; Athanassaki forthcoming.

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creative impact of the occasion: pindar and horace 223 Olympian odes’ focus from immortality to mortality and from eternal happiness to the happiness of day-to-day life, and which gives narrative attention to the charioteer. I have also argued for the creative impact of Theron’s Olympic victory on the Third Olympian, which integrates the epinician celebration with the ritual feast of the Dioscuri in Acragas. Unlike the Second Olympian, which, except for the evocation of the Sixth Pythian’s celebration, refers to epinician celebrations in general, the Third Olympian draws inspiration from the crowning ceremony at Olympia and narrates and describes the interaction of men with heroes and gods: Heracles and the Dioscuri, Heracles in the land of the Hyperboreans, the Dioscuri as hosts of gods and men in Acragas. Pindar revisits Olympia in the Second Isthmian, but this time with a totally different agenda. In the last song of the sequence, he alludes to the Theoxenia and other festivals, but focuses on human interaction and brings into the story the skilful charioteer who may have commissioned this song. The Second Isthmian is a song about past occasions which are recreated in a new picture of human happiness, which brings out the pleasures of erōs, friendship and hospitality, focusing on sport, song, comastic celebrations, banquets and festivals. The creative impact of the occasion is evident in the two Pythian odes for Arcesilas IV that served as comparative evidence, namely how the king’s Pythian victory could offer the stimulus for narrating (1) the achievements of the victorious charioteer and trusted friend Carrhotus in Pythian 5 and (2) the hopes and peaceful attitude of his erstwhile enemy, Damophilus, in Pythian 4. The occasion in Horace’s odes that served as a comparandum does not have the same creative impact it has in Pindar. The most important factor for the different handling of the occasion by Pindar and Horace is, in my view, the different socio-political and cultural background to which the two poets respond. Whether Horace destabilises the occasion, as in Odes 1.12 and 4.5, or creates a specific celebratory occasion, as in 3.14 and 4.2, the occasion is incidental rather than organic and productive, because it is Augustus who is represented as the source of peace, happiness and prosperity. As Horace tells us in 1.12, the emperor is second to Jupiter, and therefore is beyond and above competition with mortals.56 In contrast, Pindar’s songs preserve to a greater or lesser degree their ritual and cultic links to the occasions for which they were composed. This is the reason why Pindar’s honorands, whether they are kings, tyrants or private citizens, are always depicted interacting with gods and men through prayers, 56 As Putnam 1986: 111–12 suggests, the idea of Augustus as divus praesens is ­discernible in Odes 4.2 and 4.5.

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processions, sacrifices and feasts, and why the focus is always on the god who favours different men at different times. The importance of the celebratory occasion and the indispensability of divine favour lie therefore at the heart of the composition of ever-innovative narratives that illustrate their close connection. This is, I think, one of the reasons why Horace finds it hard to compose a Pindaric song for the envisaged triumph of Augustus, who was a divi filius and above competition with other mortals. As a poetic theme, Greek celebratory occasions preserved and revived the memory of exhilarating events and were therefore a desirable topic, but the demands of Greek performance culture dictated novel and custom-made compositions. A Bacchylidean dithyramb, composed for an Athenian festival, dramatises the pressure for innovation the Greek poets felt. The poet makes the choreuts apostrophise him and ask him to weave a new story: ὕφαινέ νυν ἐν ταῖς πολυηράτοις τι καινὸν ὀλβίαις Ἀθάναις, εὐαίνετε Κηΐα μέριμνα (19.8–11).57 Similarly, in the Ninth Olympian Pindar urges his audience to praise old wine, but songs that are new (αἴνει δὲ παλαιὸν μὲν οἶνον, ἄνθεα δ’ ὕμνων νεωτέρων, 48–9). The preceding discussion focused on Pindar’s innovative take on mythological narratives and evocations of occasions in his songs for the Emmenids. I have labelled the songs for Theron ‘Utopias’ and the songs for Xenocrates and Thrasybulus ‘Eutopias’ in order to highlight Pindar’s different perspective on the same occasions. I conclude with a few additional remarks. Pindar also praises Theron for his hospitality, generosity and the countless delights he had offered to others, but he does not anchor these virtues in any particular occasion, namely the symposium or the festival, as he does with Thrasybulus, Xenocrates and Nicomachus. For Theron he uses the occasion as a springboard to open up vistas of afterlife and eternal happiness, which responded to Theron’s Orphic and Pythagorean beliefs in an afterlife. From Diodorus Siculus we learn that Theron was popular with the people during his lifetime and was honoured with a posthumous heroic cult (καὶ ζῶν μεγάλης ἀποδοχῆς ἐτύγχανε παρὰ τοῖς πολίταις καὶ τελευτήσας ἡρωικῶν ἔτυχε τιμῶν, 11.53.2). Theron’s posthumous heroisation raises the question whether Pindar was aware of such a plan in the making, when he composed the Olympian songs some four years before Theron’s death. There is no need to say that it is anybody’s guess whether Pindar knew of any such intentions. Yet the image of the Isle of the Blessed in the Second Olympian, and the image of eternal happiness through the association of the crowning ceremony 57 For the similar pressure on the tragedians, see Easterling, this volume.

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at Olympia with the Hyperboreans and the Theoxenia, suggests that he was probably aware not only of Theron’s beliefs, but of his hopes as well. Some scholars have thought that Gelon’s posthumous cult could have given Pindar the idea.58 Moreover, Pindar may have wished to open up afterlife prospects that were similar to those he opened up for Hieron in the First Olympian, composed in the same year.59 These are all hypotheses, of course, but they account for Pindar’s different perspective on the odes for Xenocrates and Thrasybulus, composed for the same audience and focusing on human interaction and the power of song to grant immortality. We do not know if Xenocrates and Thrasybulus shared Theron’s belief in an afterlife, but they were unlikely to get a cult. It is worth noting that Pindar cleverly secures a place for their mythical analogues in the Isle of the Blessed, but in the songs he composed primarily for them he opts for eutopias. If my hypothesis concerning Nicomachus’ role in commissioning the Second Isthmian is right, we have yet another instance of a custommade song. The Second Isthmian shares the eutopic vision of the Sixth Pythian and the sympotic fr. 124ab, but it secures a prominent place for somebody who was both a victorious charioteer and an old friend of the family.

58 Lehnus 1981: 47 ad 68–70; Torres 2007: 359–60. For Gelon’s cult in Syracuse, see Diodorus Siculus 11.38.5. 59 In the First Olympian Pindar chose the myth of Pelops, a hērōs ktistēs, who receives cult at Olympia; for the relevance of the mythical exemplum to Hieron’s hopes and aspirations, see Slater 1989: 498–501; Athanassaki 2009b: 230–3; see also B. Currie 2005: 344–405, who focuses on Pythian 3. Moreover, Clay 2011a: 343 has recently suggested that Hieron’s and Theron’s temporary reconciliation at the time of their Olympic victories may have given Pindar the inspiration to choose common themes for Olympians 1–3, which could have even been performed by a common chorus. Note that Bacchylides also opened up afterlife prospects for Hieron in 476 in Ode 5.

11 NARRATIVE ON THE GREEK TRAGIC STAGE P. E. Easterling

This chapter sets out to look for what was distinctive about Greek practice in the staging of tragic stories. There is no doubt that this new art form of the late sixth and early fifth centuries was a highly original experiment, with no obvious model in other cultures, but of course the early dramatists did not have to start from scratch. The epic and lyric traditions offered them a great range of serious narratives which had already been shaped for performance, whether by rhapsodes or by choruses, and without this precedent it would be hard to imagine Attic tragedy having developed as quickly as it did into a genre of such richness, sophistication and popular appeal.1 Once the early dramatists had taken the crucial step of representing imagined characters (particularly famous figures from the mythical past) as present here and now, enacting their stories before an audience as if for the first time, the dynamics of narrative must have needed reshaping to suit the new medium, and this is where we should be looking for creative experimentation.2 For example, when we consider the forms taken by narrative in tragedy there is no need to see them as determined by, or as hangovers from, epic practice, or to single out ‘messenger speeches’ as having a specially privileged status. The long ‘set-piece’ rhēsis is not the only place for dramatic narrative, which can turn up in passages of dialogue (as at S. OC 385–420, Ismene’s crucial account to Oedipus, in question-and-answer format, of the new oracle(s) about him and their effect on Theban policy), or in lyrics (as at A. Cho. 22–46, where the chorus of slave women describe the events that have prompted their errand to the tomb of Agamemnon, evoking in a single stanza (32–41) both the terrifying effects of Clytemnestra’s   1 See esp. Herington 1985; Lowe 2000: ch. 8.  2 Gould 2001 combines a thoughtful discussion of the theoretical issues with a persuasive reading of narrative in tragedy, especially Agamemnon and OT. For a detailed narratological study of a single tragedy see Markantonatos 2002.

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dream and the interpretation put on it by the ‘experts’). And there was plenty of variety, too, in the choice of news-bringers:3 they could be persons with official status as carriers of messages, heralds like Lichas (S. Tr.) or Talthybius (E. Tro.), anonymous servants associated with the central figures of the drama, or simply bystanders at some momentous event, or they could be named characters intimately involved in the action, as in Ajax, when Tecmessa tells Ajax’s crewmen in precise4 detail what has happened in his tent (284–330) and – as in a typical messenger rhēsis – quotes direct speech (288–91, 293), or in Trachiniae, when Hyllus describes for his mother Deianeira the terrible effect of the poisoned robe on his father Heracles (749–812). Even participants might be narrators: Clytemnestra as killer (A. Ag. 1372–98), and Polymestor as victim (E. Hec. 1132–82), are shockingly memorable examples. Again, when we consider how the tragedians adapted the plot material that they took over from earlier poetry, it is worth asking whether the physical features of the ancient theatre, and the scenic conventions that became standard for tragic plays, were a help or a hindrance to them in presenting the stories in new ways. These conventions could of course be regarded as constraints or limitations on the genre, but it makes better sense – if our surviving tragedies can be taken as representative examples – to see them as being used to intensify the narrative focus.5 The challenge was to find ways of tailoring a chosen sequence of events so that it could be enacted without loss of complexity in a (more or less) unchanging setting and over a relatively short period of playing time. This characteristic technique of compression is worth examining more closely. SPACE If we ask ‘Where and when does the story unfold?’ the answer must begin with the here and now, given that flesh-and-blood people are acting the roles ‘here’, in whatever space is set apart for performance in the particular polis where the play is presented. But the characters and events are also located in three types of imagined space: the immediate setting on view to the audience; the area understood to be immediately off-stage (‘behind the scenes’: the interior of the palace/tent/grove); and the relevant other places – local, foreign or divine – connected   3 On news-bringing in ancient society see Longo 1978; cf. Goward 1999: 15.   4 Precise, but limited by her human perspective: as Gould 2001: 327 points out, at 301–4 Tecmessa speaks of Ajax ranting at ‘some shadow’ (σκιᾳ̂ τιν), without identifying it as Athena, who has already been heard, if not seen by the audience.   5 See Lowe 2000: 164–75 for a rich discussion of these issues.

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by arrivals along the eisodoi or on the roof.6 Crucially important for the audience’s engagement with the dramatic narrative as a whole is the linking of what is not here before their eyes – places and events to be imagined outside the immediate space – with the individuals who are at the centre of their attention in the drama and have been or will be visible in the acting area.7 Oliver Taplin has eloquently described Xerxes’ entrance in Persae: his steps as he enters alone, on foot, in real or symbolic rags, are the final paces of the retreat that was begun in the messenger’s account of Salamis and after.8 Similarly, the seashore, scene of the fatal chariot accident (reported in detail at E. Hipp. 1173–248), when Poseidon’s bull emerged from a sudden tsunami9 and maddened the horses of Hippolytus, becomes more vividly ‘real’ to the audience when the dying hero is brought in bearing the wounds he was given there (1342–69). The presence of the chorus in the orchestra typically contributes a great deal to this process of intensification. A regular role of the choral group is to serve as both narratees and witnesses, sometimes guiding audience response to the events narrated,10 but there are also ways in which their lyrics can give imaginative colour and emotional significance to the detail of unseen settings. At Hipp. 1126–41, for example, dismayed at the banishment of Hippolytus, they sing of the places he will no longer frequent in his chariot racing and hunting, starting with the ‘sands of the city’s shore’, which they elaborate at 1131–4 with the image of Hippolytus ‘driving a yoke-team of Enetic horses along the track beside the Mere’ (the lagoon that was part of Artemis’ sanctuary), using language which closely recalls Phaedra’s words of longing at 228–31. These details come just before the news-bringer arrives to describe what happened further along the shore after Hippolytus had begun his journey into exile. The point that needs to be stressed here is that narrative speeches do not stand alone, but draw together themes and images from other parts of a play. In this tradition, in which there is little scope for elaborate scenery or changes of setting, entrances and exits are crucial: the (convincing) deployment of people in the acting area is what matters, if ‘here’ and the sequence of events linking it with elsewhere are to be fully imagi  6 Rehm 2002: 22–3 labels these three categories as respectively ‘scenic’, extrascenic’ and ‘distanced’.   7 On the distinctive playing space of Greek theatre see Ley 2007.   8 Taplin 1977: 126–7.   9 See Sedley 2005: 210–11 (on Hipp. 1198–1214). 10 E.g., by raising questions about the significance of the stage action, as at Ant. 1244–5 when they ask the servant what it might mean that Eurydice has left in silence after hearing his account of Haemon’s death, a clear warning of more disaster to come.

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nable. Aristotle (Poetics 17) makes much of the need for a dramatist to visualise stage action when working out plot, and the example he cites must have been notorious, judging by the allusive way he mentions it (1455a26–9). This was a play by Carcinus which ‘failed’ (ἐξέπεσεν: perhaps the actor was hissed off stage) because the spectators were so offended when the character in question, Amphiaraus, was ‘coming back from the temple’: presumably a simple error in relation to what the audience had been led to expect. The tragic scholia, too, are intensely interested in the importance of entrances and exits for the coherence and impact of the overall narrative. There is a detailed note on Ajax 719, for example, which approvingly points out the ‘wonderful’ timing of the messenger’s arrival from the Greek camp, soon after Ajax had left the acting area, ostensibly to purify himself and bury his sword (654–6). The messenger, evidently a comrade sympathetic to Ajax and his men, comes with important news: Teucer, just back from an expedition, has been warned by the seer Calchas of impending danger to Ajax; this prompts Tecmessa and the chorus, who otherwise had no reason to suspect his intentions, to go off in search of him, leaving the scene clear for Ajax to enter and make his suicide speech.11 TIME ‘Now’ is complicated by the fact that the characters and choruses are drawn from the past world of the epic heroes and use language that is full of echoes of epic and lyric narrative, often evoking by way of exempla other people’s stories from still further back in that distant past (as when at A. Cho. 599–630 the chorus find parallels for the destructive passion of women, specifically Clytemnestra, though without naming her, in the stories of Althaea, who destroyed her son Meleager, Scylla, who robbed her father of his immortality, and the Lemnian women, who murdered their husbands).12 But in any tragedy there are also regular allusions – in more or less veiled terms – to contemporary events, institutions and ideas, as well as ‘self-referential’ or ‘metatheatrical’ reminders of the play as play.13 At the same time, the tragedians habitually remodelled the characters and stories that 11 For the text of this scholium see Christodoulou 1977: 168, and for discussion Jouanna 2001. 12 Cf. Lowe 2000: 159: ‘The most important literary fact about Greek tragedy, its unparalleled semic density, is itself a close corollary of its espousal of myth – where every person, place, action, and utterance is set in a limitless web of other stories, other versions, and aetiological resonances.’ 13 On the function of such references in drama, see the interesting comments by Rehm 2002: 23, and on the problematic terminology of ‘metatheatre’ and issues raised by the concept, see T. G. Rosenmeyer 2002; Thumiger 2009.

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they drew from earlier tradition, and intertextual references to other versions, in epic, or lyric, or other plays, add to the complexity of the narrative. As Ruth Scodel has pointed out, ‘Tragedies contradict each other’,14 even plays by the same author: we have only to think of the many divergences between the surviving Theban plays, for example, in their varying use of what we know or conjecture about the storylines favoured by the Thebais and Stesichorus, or the contrasting ways in which OT or Phoenissae draw on Septem, or the contradictions between Antigone and OC.15 All this makes ‘now’ an extremely dense and multivalent concept. There is a similar complexity in many references to the future, some of them narratives of experiences which prefigure events that take place within the drama (e.g., Atossa’s account of her dream in Persae, oracles that are reinterpreted as the action unfolds, as in Trachiniae, or ghostly visions as in Hecuba),16 others looking ahead to later times. Often the events foretold, such as the alliance between Argos and Athens (Eum. 762–6) or the building of the temple to Artemis Tauropolos at Halae (IT 1449–61), are already part of the audience’s own world, and the placing (especially by Euripides) of ‘straight’ narrative at the beginnings and ends of plays to cover future happenings can be seen as a response to the problem of staying within selfimposed boundaries and keeping the focus on the dramatic present while reaching out to a much wider world and larger span of time.17 In this context, divine beings are conveniently versatile narrators. Being gods, they may be impenetrably mysterious and distant, or uncomfortably close: in some plays they are easily imagined to be operating behind the scenes, which helps to make their appearance and prophetic dispensations (or those of their agents) less detached from the imagined world of the dramatic action, though no less inscrutable.18 A crucial feature of tragic narrative in respect of the management of time was famously noted by Aristotle (Poetics ch. 5, 1449b12–13), namely that tragedy ‘tries as far as possible to keep to the limit of a 14 Scodel 2010: 28; cf. the long scholium on E. Hec. 3, remarking that Euripides often ‘improvises (αὐτοσχεδιάζει) in genealogies’. 15 See Mastronarde 1994: 17–30 for a fine discussion of Theban myth in this and other plays. 16 For tragedy’s use of oracles and dreams cf. R. B. Rutherford [1982] 2001. 17 See, e.g., Roberts 1988; Dunn 1996. 18 Ion is a sophisticated example of divine presence and absence, with Hermes at the beginning of the play, and Athena at the end, speaking for the unseen Apollo, who is clearly identified as the shaper of the immediate and more distant future of Ion and his family (65–75; 1569–95), while the intervention of the Pythia at 1320–68 brings out his involvement from moment to moment in their lives; cf. another hint of his agency at 1197–8.

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single revolution of the sun’, that is, it presents a more or less continuous story compressed into a ‘now’ representing a single day, typically starting at ‘zero-hour’ (as in A. Ag., Sept.; S. Aj., Tr., OT; E. Her., Or.). Aristotle goes on to note that tragedy was not always like this: ‘at first tragic practice was the same as epic’ (1449b14–16). And even without Aristotle, who may or may not have had much documentation on the early stages of the genre, it is a likely guess that adaptation from earlier modes of narrative can hardly have happened overnight, and that the trilogy convention, in particular, may have been a useful transitional stage in the process of development and innovation.19 What matters here is the scope that the one-day principle gives for the greatest possible condensation of the story that is being dramatised. Such a degree of compression cannot be effected without a very particular kind of continuity: time has to be elastic, with choral lyrics especially useful for covering indeterminate gaps.20 And the continuity of the stage action is pretty distinctive, too. There are no interruptions in long narrative rheseis: nothing is assumed to be happening ‘elsewhere’ while the story is told. At Medea 1122ff. when a messenger comes in urgently telling Medea to ‘Flee! Flee!’ he is given nearly a hundred lines of narrative, with no distracting anxiety for the audience that at any moment Creon’s servants will rush in and attack Medea for murdering the princess and her father; rather, here as elsewhere, the telling and listening become the action, and there is nothing paradoxical about the use of very long narrative speeches at certain critical moments. One might compare the messenger in Ajax (p. 229): at this moment of extreme urgency, with Ajax’s safety under threat, he gives a long report (748–83) of what Calchas said to Teucer, condensing into this part of his speech not only what needs to be known about the immediate danger, but some highly relevant back-history about the reasons for Athena’s anger, with direct quotation of advice given to Ajax by his father long ago, and Ajax’s arrogant rejection of both his father and the goddess herself. This seeming elaboration actually intensifies the sense that the critical moment is about to arrive. By contrast with epic, on the other hand, there is no almost verbatim repetition of narrative information, and a variety of devices are used to achieve more economical ends. Tragic speakers may pointedly abbreviate, or put off, narratives that would give news to other characters but not to the audience, as at OC 569–70, when Oedipus, who has 19 Cf. Lowe 2000: 165–6. 20 As S. H. Butcher noted long ago, ‘The Chorus releases us from the captivity of time. The interval covered by the choral ode is one whose value is just what the poet chooses to make of it’ (Butcher 1907: 292–3).

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shown himself capable of heroically long speeches, answers Theseus’ request for information by replying that he needs to say very little, since Theseus already knows who he is and where he comes from (and of course Oedipus has already explained his situation at length to the chorus). At 1115–16 he asks his daughters, safely rescued by Theseus, to tell him what happened ‘as briefly as possible: a short speech is enough for young women’, to which Antigone replies, also in two verses, stressing her own brevity, and the emotional focus of the scene rapidly shifts from past to present. In this case there has been an elaborate choral lyric (1044–95) proleptically imagining the encounter between Theseus and his men and the Thebans, and there is no need for further narrative of that episode. At S. El. 1339–45, after the joyful recognition scene between brother and sister, in the course of which Orestes has discouraged Electra from going into detail about her past sufferings (1251–2, 1288–91), there is a brief exchange between Orestes and the Paidagogos, with Orestes eager to know more about the situation in the palace: ‘How will I find things when I go in?’ ‘Fine: no one can recognise you.’ ‘Evidently you told them that I was dead?’ ‘Know that as far as they are concerned you are in Hades.’ ‘Well, are they pleased by the news? Or what are they saying?’ ‘I’ll tell you when the task is complete.’ The scholia on 1251 and 1344 strongly approve of this technique for avoiding delay and consequent ‘irritation’ of the spectators. Sometimes there is no report at all of what has happened off-stage, because the event can be made more urgently ‘present’ with the aid of voices off and then clinched by the showing of evidence, especially a corpse or corpses, as in the climactic scene in this same Electra, where the response of Electra and the chorus to Clytemnestra’s cries from within the palace culminates in Electra’s terrifying command to Orestes ‘Strike again, if you have the strength’ (1415); and soon afterwards the corpse is brought into view for the deception of Aegisthus. Here too there is a scholium (on 1404) to explain the logistics: Messengers normally report the things that have taken place inside to those outside, but here he (the poet) did not compose in this way, so as not to waste time in the play, since its main subject is the suffering of Electra. So here the spectator hears Clytemnestra shouting as she is murdered, and the action is more effective than if it were described through the medium of a messenger. The sensationalism of display was absent, but through the shouting he contrived a no less vivid effect.21 21 ἔθος ἔχουσι τὰ γεγονότα ἔνδον ἀπαγγέλλειν τοῖς ἔξω οἱ ἄγγελοι, νῦν δὲ διὰ τὸ μὴ διατρίβειν ἐν τῷ δράματι οὐκ ἐποίησεν. τούτῳ γὰρ προκείμενον τὸ κατὰ τὴν Ἠλέκτραν

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narrative on the greek tragic stage 233 A similar technique is used in Medea, with the chorus responding helplessly to the cries of the children as they are attacked by their mother (1270a–81a); there is no time then for a detailed narrative of the murders, but only for the confrontation of Jason by Medea in the chariot of Helios, with the children’s corpses on view but beyond his reach (1377). NARRATIVE AS PERFORMANCE

Whatever the variations in technique for achieving the greatest concentration and intensity, there is no doubt that the narrative medium itself was relished as having great theatrical power.22 The first point to stress is the sheer length of narrative speeches in tragedy, particularly the ones that relate a drama’s climactic but unseen events: eighty or more verses for these is common, and some examples run to ninety or a hundred. This lavishness suggests that in giving such prominence to telling and listening the tragedians were appealing to the dramatic potential of deeply rooted impulses in human experience. The seductive power – thelxis – of storytelling was certainly a familiar notion in Greek tradition: we might recall Eumaeus in the Odyssey (17.518–21) telling Penelope of his response to the disguised Odysseus’ three-day narrative in his hut, ‘As when a man gazes at a bard, who has been taught by the gods to sing spell-binding songs to mortals, and they long insatiably to listen to him, for as long as he will sing’.23 And the familiar example of rhapsodic performance, in which the rhapsodes ‘played all the speaking characters’ in their narratives,24 must have been an influential model for tragedians and actors in their use of long set speeches at critical points in the action. There are other pointers, too, to the significance of the narrative form. Almost always, the news-bringer’s account is marked off with explicit deictic signals that crucial information is being brought,25 ἐστὶ πάθος· νῦν τοίνυν βοώσης ἐν τῇ ἀναιρέσει τῆς Κλυταιμήστρας ἀκούει ὁ θεατὴς καὶ ἐνεργέστερον τὸ πρᾶγμα γίνεται ἢ δι᾿ἀγγέλου σημαινόμενον. καὶ τὸ μὲν φορτικὸν τῆς ὄψεως ἀπέστη, τὸ δὲ ἐναργὲς οὐδὲν ἧσσον καὶ διὰ τῆς βοῆς ἐπραγματεύσατο (Xenis 2010). 22 Cf. De Jong 1991: 118–20, noting the importance of parody scenes in comedy. 23 Cf. D. Steiner 2010 on 518–21; Maxwell 2012: 20–1 cites a more modern instance of the need to tell, Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner: ‘The Mariner speaks for the unassuageable thirst of all the storytellers, all the poets: “Since then, at an uncertain hour | That agony returns: | And till my ghastly tale is told, | This heart within me burns.” ’ 24 Rehm 2003: 114–15, who compares the effect to that of a radio play, in which ‘the audience become essential co-creators of the event’. 25 For fuller discussion of these formal features see De Jong 1991; Goward 1999; Barrett 2002.

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usually with a ‘headline’ early in the scene to give the essence of what has happened, and often with interpretative comment at the beginning or end. In the earliest surviving example, the messenger’s account of the Persian defeat at Salamis (A. Pers. 246–514), the chorus prepares Atossa and the spectators for imminent news at 246–8, and the messenger’s grandly emotional opening lines at 249–55 culminate in the simplest of statements: ‘The whole barbarian force has perished.’ This is a particularly lavish narrative scene (at 429–30 the messenger remarks that he could not give a full account of the disasters suffered by the Persians, even if he were to take ten days going through the details), but the same pattern recurs on a smaller scale in later plays, with much stress on the speaker’s role as eye-witness. At S. OT 1236–40 the palace servant who reports Jocasta’s suicide remarks that the chorus were spared the worst, not having been present at the scene, ‘but as far as my own memory allows you will learn what the poor woman suffered’.26 Cf. the news-bringer from the Greek camp at Ajax 749: ‘So much I know, and I happened to be there.’ The reliability of the narrative is sometimes more explicitly stressed: at S. Ant. 1192–3 the servant tells Eurydice ‘I will speak as one who was present, and I will omit no word of the truth’, and there are many cases where narrators claim to tell ‘the whole story’.27 Of course, despite all these claims to truth made by narrators, the telling is by no means always transparent: there is always the question of how to interpret the teller’s meaning or intentions, both for the narratees, the built-in audiences of chorus and characters, and for the audience in the theatre making sense of what they hear. Given the strong bias in Greek poetic tradition towards the Hesiodic idea that the Muses’ gift to poets was the capacity to tell both the truth and beguiling lies that are like the truth, as in the false tales of the Odyssey, audiences could be expected to engage very readily with deliberately deceptive narratives. Recent work28 has examined the extraordinary range of possibilities exploited by deceptive speeches 26 τῶν δὲ πραχθέντων τὰ μὲν | ἄλγιστ᾿ ἄπεστιν· ἡ γὰρ ὄψις οὐ πάρα. | ὅμως δ᾿, ὅσον γε κἀν ἐμοὶ μνήμης ἔνι, | πεύσῃ τὰ κείνης ἀθλίας παθήματα. What does μνήμη mean here? Jebb [1893] 2004: ad loc. takes it to mean ‘memory’, with the implication ‘though your own memory, had you been present, would have preserved a more vivid impression’. For Dawe 2006, μνήμη in this context suggests ‘the power to describe’: ‘as the messenger approaches his epic recital he depreciates his own poetic ability to do justice to his theme’. Either way, this is a very self-conscious indication of the dramatic importance of the narrative. Cf. Barrett 2002: 196–7 for further discussion. 27 E.g., A. Pers. 253–4, Ag. 582 with Fraenkel’s note; S. Tr. 876, El. 680, Phil. 604 and 620; E. Hcld. 799. 28 See in particular Goward 1999: chs. 3 and 7.

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narrative on the greek tragic stage 235 in a dramatic medium, especially in the contrasting responses of different narratees. The Paidagogos’ virtuosic deception speech in the Sophoclean Electra (680–763) is perhaps the most famous case; it also has ironic implications for other narratives in the play. Chrysothemis, for example, twice brings news, first at 378: ‘I’ll tell you everything I know’ (ἀλλ᾿ἐξερῶ σοι πᾶν ὅσον κάτοιδ᾿ ἐγώ), about the plans of Clytemnestra and Aegisthus, which Electra believes, then later (871ff.) she comes to report finding the lock of hair and – faced with Electra’s refusal to believe, now that she has heard the false tale of Orestes’ death – Chrysothemis insists on giving her (true) report at 892–919, starting with ‘I’ll tell you everything I saw’ (καὶ δὴ λέγω σοι πᾶν ὅσον κατειδόμην), but this time without any chance of success. Even if there is no obvious desire to deceive on the part of given narrators, there may be discrepancies in what is narrated, leaving the audience guessing. Philoctetes is a striking example: the differing versions of what Helenus said in his prophecy about the taking of Troy are further complicated by the fact that one possibly crucial piece of information comes in the speech of the False Merchant, at 611–13, where he stresses the need for Philoctetes to go to Troy by persuasion, not by force. Oracles, typically ambiguous at the best of times, offer great scope for similar uncertainties, as in OC, where different characters are shown trying to make sense of the same oracular message, never spelled out in its ‘original’ terms. So it comes pretty naturally in this genre that deception and/or indeterminacy and elusiveness play an important part, despite the many attempts by narrators and narratees to interpret the significance of what is narrated. All our surviving tragedies either explicitly or implicitly offer clues to broader interpretation of the action (e.g., comments by news-bringers on the ‘meaning’ of what they report, and deeper or more enigmatic reflections by choruses on the events they have witnessed). But typically there is no clinching ‘answer’ in the comments of narrators – or participants, or witnesses – to the problems that a play explores, and the long history of scholarship and criticism on tragedy decisively bears this out. WHO DOES THE TELLING? I want to end with a particularly Greek feature of the performance of narrative, which may well have contributed significantly to its density and multivalence for audiences familiar with the conventions. This was the practice of multiple role-playing by a strictly limited number of speaking actors, especially when the part of narrator of climactic off-stage events was taken by the actor who also played the relevant character, giving him scope to evoke the words (and voice) of the figure

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at the centre of the action. This practice was closely dependent on the equally distinctive convention of using full-head masks for speakers and mute supernumeraries, and since such masking limited the use of facial cues, it was surely important for audiences to be aware that only a limited number of the figures they were watching would actually be speaking the relevant parts.29 There is virtually no precise external evidence for how these parts were distributed in fifth-century plays as originally performed, and all interpretation involves a degree of guesswork, but the allocation of roles must have been something that mattered a great deal to performers, particularly after the switch from two speaking actors to three, which evidently took place sometime in the period between the productions of Persae (472 bce) and Oresteia (458 bce). An important change of this kind must have had an effect on the dynamics of tragic performance, and it is tempting to see the institution of a prize for the best actor at the City Dionysia in 449 bce as a sign of growing interest in the ways in which individual performers could display their talents.30 The surviving plays themselves, with their lengthy and prominent narrative speeches at high points in the action, give encouragement to the idea that protagonists might have been drawn to taking the parts of anonymous news-bringers as well as playing the great hero roles, and there are some cases that point clearly in this direction, as Maarit Kaimio31 and others have suggested. Of course there could be no set formula for role-distribution applicable to all plays. In some cases the plot demanded the almost continuous visible presence of the leading figure (PV, OT, Med., Hec., Tro.), or the protagonist was fully occupied in playing two major roles – for example, first Deianeira and then Heracles in Trachiniae – or the action involved no climactic outside event to compare with what 29 A scholium on S. Aj. 815a may give a hint of the spectators’ alertness to such questions: ‘The scene changes to some lonely place, where Ajax gets ready his sword and makes a speech before his death, for it would be absurd for a non-speaker to come in and fall on his sword.’ (μετακινεῖται ἡ σκηνὴ ἐπὶ ἐρήμου τινὸς χωρίου, ἔνθα ὁ Αἴας εὐτρεπίσας τὸ ξίφος ῥῆσίν τινα πρὸ τοῦ θανάτου προφέρεται· ἐπεὶ γέλοιον ἦν κωφὸν εἰσελθόντα περιπεσεῖν τῳ̂ ξίφει.) Where would the ‘absurdity’ lie? In the fact that there was no great final speech from the central figure Ajax, or in the fact that, if the suicide were performed without a speech, the audience would assume it was a non-speaking actor, not the protagonist, who was taking the part, and the scene would lose its emotive power altogether? If audiences could be expected to be closely familiar with the conventions of role-sharing between speakers and nonspeakers, dramatists would need to avoid letting their guard slip and revealing the ‘backstage’ realities. 30 Kaimio 1993 reviews the evidence for the organisation of tragic competitions and makes some important suggestions about the distribution of roles. 31 Kaimio 1993; G. McCart in Ewans 2000: 284–6; Easterling 2004; Rehm 2002: 175; Wiles 2007: 172–4.

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was happening before the eyes of the audience and therefore justify a lengthy narrative. In S. Phil., for example, the two actors playing Philoctetes and Neoptolemus, one of whom was certainly the protagonist, are on stage almost throughout, and although both have important narrative speeches – Philoctetes’ account of his life on Lemnos (254–316) and Neoptolemus’ disingenuous tale of his grudge against the Atreidae (343–90) – these do not come into the ‘climactic’ category. In some plays, too, the need to match the roles that called for lyric monodies to the actors with the best singing voices must have affected the overall distribution of parts: in E. Or. the actor who played Electra and the Phrygian, both parts which required extensive solo singing – in the Phrygian’s case an exotic messenger narrative – cannot have been the protagonist, and some plots were clearly designed to spread the performance opportunities more evenly between the actors. In any case, the original allocation of roles surely did not have to stay fixed for revivals, when the leading actors no doubt felt free to impose their own preferences, and the wider the spread of tragedy in later times, the more varied the circumstances of performance must have become.32 Taking the most likely examples from the second half of the fifth century, with Pickard-Cambridge’s cautious analyses of what can be inferred from the texts themselves as a starting point,33 we can identify ten or more plays in which a reasonable argument can be made for giving the protagonist also a prominent role as news-bringer. The clearer candidates (in roughly chronological order of production) are E. Hipp., Ion, IT, Helen,34 Or., Ba.; S. OC; and more tentatively E. Hcld., Andr., Her., and S. Ant., a notoriously debated case.35 Some brief notes on a couple of examples may help to illustrate a possible effect that this kind of narrative may have had in performance. When the narrator of a play’s climactic event quotes the direct speech of others involved in the action, this can perhaps be felt as a structuring device, an economical way of linking the different agents, through the presence and voice of the single actor, in the creation of something essential about the play and its possible meanings. Greek tragedy, as Donald Mastronarde has remarked, is ‘inherently a representation of many voices offering competing viewpoints, and the competition is 32 For the fourth century, see J. R. Green 1999. Green’s study of Tarentine vase-paintings, showing a solo (evidently star) performer in the news-bringer role, makes a compelling case for the importance of this figure as interpreter, as well as narrator, of the play’s events. 33 Pickard-Cambridge 1988. 34 But Allan 2008: 33, argues for giving the messenger’s role to the deuteragonist and Castor’s to the protagonist. 35 See, e.g., Sifakis 1995, esp. 18–21; Kaimio 1993: 28–30; Easterling 2004: 133–4.

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not merely between the elite figures of heroic myth, for tragedy also significantly plays off against the elite voices various more humble ones, such as those of the chorus and nameless servants and messengers’.36 The practice of multiple role-playing, arranged so as to display the versatility of the leading actors, may have helped to hold this ‘competition’ in an extraordinarily creative tension, and thus to contribute to the concentrated effect of the whole enactment of the story. Hippolytus There is no certainty that the protagonist must have played the part of news-bringer, but Kaimio is surely right to argue strongly for it. This man is one of Hippolytus’ faithful servants (1151–2) who can describe the disaster on the seashore as an involved eye-witness. He and his companions had heard their master’s sad words as he prepared to leave Troezen and asked for his horses to be harnessed (duly quoted at 1182–4), then his defiant appeal to Zeus for justice (1191–3) before he drove off; they were near enough to witness the crash, but too far away to catch up in time and help, and did not see what happened to the bull and the horses. The final direct quotation of Hippolytus’ words as he was entangled in the chariot and smashed against the rocks (1240–2) condenses into three lines the main features of both the character and the plot of the play: ‘ Hold fast, horses reared in my own stables! Don’t destroy me! O dire curse of my father! Who will be ready to save an innocent man?’ The speaker ends (1249–54) with a strong challenge to Theseus to recognise Hippolytus’ innocence: I am only a slave of your royal house, my lord, but I cannot believe, and never shall be able to, that your son is an evil-doer. No, not if the whole race of women should hang themselves, not if all the pines of Ida were turned into tablets full of messages – for I know that he is a good man. This is the perspective of an outspoken supporter, but its incongruous detail is a reminder of the tragic events involving Phaedra and Theseus from earlier in the play. If the protagonist took this role as well as that of Hippolytus, there was scope for his performance to give exceptional power to this climactic narrative, in preparation for the revelations of the final scene.

36 Mastronarde 2010: 67–8.

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narrative on the greek tragic stage 239 Ion

The protagonist would surely play Ion, and the deuteragonist Creousa. All the other parts could in theory be played by the third actor, but Ion is absent between 675 and 1261; during this part of the play his actor could have played both the Old Man who persuades Creousa to plot his death, and the servant who rushes in at 1106 at a moment of great crisis, to report the failure of the plot and the mortal danger of Creousa. The crisis does not prevent him from making an enormously long speech (1122–1228, the longest in the play), reporting Ion’s preparation of the huge and elaborately decorated festive tent and then his near-poisoning, saved only by the ‘miracle’ of a dove drinking from the cup intended for him and falling dead. The speaker quotes four passages of direct speech: first we hear Xuthus (1128–31) instructing Ion to supervise the erection of the tent, and explaining that he himself may be delayed in making sacrifices;37 then the Old Man’s voice at 1178–80 giving instructions about the serving of wine, before adding poison to the ‘specially chosen cup’ to be presented to Ion; next Ion’s own voice at 1210–14, when he suspects that he is the intended victim and challenges the Old Man; and finally his public announcement of Creousa’s guilt (1220–1), which leads to a death sentence. It is hard to imagine any self-respecting protagonist passing up the opportunity, but there is much more to the speech than the scope it offers to a virtuoso actor: critics have often discussed the meaning for the play (and for the understanding of Ion’s identity) suggested by the long ekphrasis of the tent’s decorations,38 and the hint of Apollo’s agency in its climactic event, the uncanny scene of the dove’s death which saves Ion’s life (1187–1208), gives special significance to the narrative in relation to the whole plot. The focus in these two speeches on a decisive supernatural happening is even stronger in the news-bringer’s reports in two other plays: in Bacchae the killing of Pentheus on Mt Cithaeron (1024–1152), and in Oedipus at Colonus the mysterious disappearance of Oedipus, witnessed only by Theseus (1586–1666). In both of these speeches there are other highly charged passages of direct quotation, evoking persons and themes from earlier in the play,39 but in each case the strangest and most arresting quotation is that of a heavenly voice explicitly directing 37 A clear indication that his actor will be returning in different roles (the Priestess and Athena); cf. Lee 1997 on 1130–2. 38 Some samples in Lee 1997: 282–3. 39 The other speakers cited are: (Ba.) Pentheus at 1059–62, 1118–21 and Agave at 1106–9, 1146–7; (OC) Oedipus at 1611–19, 1630–5, 1639–44.

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the action.40 At Ba. 1078–81: ‘From the upper air some voice – it must have been Dionysus – cried out , “Young women, I bring you the one who makes a mockery of you and me and my rites: punish him!” ’ Then follows a tremendous flash of fire, and an uncanny silence in the whole of nature; the maenads are bewildered, and the divine command is repeated, with instant violent effects. At OC 1623–8, when Oedipus has said farewell to his daughters: ‘There was silence, and suddenly someone’s voice cried out to him, making everyone’s hair stand on end in fear. For the god called him often and in many ways41: “You there, Oedipus, why are we waiting to go? You have been delaying too long.” ’ In each case, while the whole messenger narrative is rich in detail evoking much that has gone before,42 the actor’s control over the different roles that he brings to life within a single speech may help the audience to sense something of the compression and coherence of the whole design.

40 For the similarities of detail and phrasing between the two passages see Dodds 1960 on 1078–90. 41 Or perhaps ‘often and everywhere’: πολλὰ πολλαχῃ̂ seems to imply more than just ‘many times’. 42 I have tried to explore some of this detail for OC in Easterling 2006.

12 STOCK SITUATIONS, TOPOI AND THE GREEKNESS OF GREEK HISTORIOGRAPHY Lisa Irene Hau Scholars who work on Greek historiography tend to focus on the differences: Herodotus is the charming one who passes on local traditions; Thucydides is cynical about human nature and leaves religion out of history; Xenophon writes autobiographical history and peppers his work with intriguing dialogues; Polybius produced a handbook for statesmen, but is torn between Greece and Rome; Diodorus Siculus is only as good as his source; and so forth. But when we focus on these differences we often forget that, in fact, the works of Greek historiography, at least until the first century bc, are much more similar to each other than to any body of historiography that came after. In this chapter I shall try to define those characteristics of Greek historiography from the fifth to the first century bc that made it a distinct genre. Some of these characteristics can be hard to spot because they started a trend which either persisted into Roman historiography or has been reignited in modern historiography, but the sum of these various characteristics is nevertheless what makes Greek historiography Greek. Before we begin, some remarks about my choice of material are in order. This study focuses on the Greek historiographers of the fifth to the first century bc whose works are extant in substantial form; that is Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, Polybius and Diodorus Siculus. I stop at Diodorus because this volume concerns itself with what is distinctive about Greek narrative, and after Diodorus Greek historiography merges with Roman historiography to such a degree that it becomes impossible to keep the two traditions apart. Herodotus, as

I want to thank Ruth Scodel and Douglas Cairns for inviting me to speak at the Leventis Conference (which was a thoroughly enjoyable experience) and to contribute to this volume, as well as for their valuable comments on earlier versions of the chapter. Thanks are also due to everyone who asked questions and offered comments after the delivery of the conference chapter; the comments of Nick Lowe and Irene de Jong were particularly useful.

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the inventor of the genre, in some ways differs from the others, and I shall return to that below. The focus on these historiographers to the exclusion of those that survive only in fragments means that some branches of ancient Greek historiography are left out of the discussion: local history and genealogy are particularly poorly preserved although both were important and popular genres in the classical and Hellenistic period. The narrow focus is justified not only by the state of preservation of the works under scrutiny, but also by the fact that these works are the ones that inspired the succeeding western tradition of historiography (beginning with the Roman tradition) and determined some of its main characteristics, as we shall see below. STOCK SITUATIONS, STOCK EVENTS AND TOPOI We begin with three passages from three different Greek historiographers: Since they never encountered any set-backs, the soldiers had got into the habit of collecting their supplies (λαμβανόντων τὰ ἐπιτήδεια) carelessly and without taking due precautions (καταφρονητικῶς δέ ποτε καὶ ἀφυλάκτως). And there was one occasion when Pharnabazus, with two scythed chariots and about four hundred cavalry, came on them when they were scattered (ἐσπαρμένοις) all over the plain. When the Greeks saw him bearing down on them, they ran to join up with each other, about seven hundred all together; but Pharnabazus did not waste time. Putting the chariots in front, and following behind them himself with the cavalry, he ordered a charge. The chariots, dashing into the Greek ranks, broke up their close formation, and the cavalry soon cut down about a hundred men. The rest fled and took refuge with Agesilaus, who happened to be close at hand with the hoplites. (Xen. Hel. 4.1.17–19, trans. Warner) The Selinuntians, who were prosperous in those days and whose city was heavily populated, held the Aegestaeans in contempt (κατεφρόνουν). And at first, deploying in battle order, they laid waste the land which touched their border, since their armies were far superior, but after this, despising their foe (καταφρονήσαντες), they scattered everywhere over the countryside (κατὰ πᾶσαν τὴν χώραν ἐσκεδάσθησαν). [4] The generals of the Aegestaeans, watching their opportunity (παρατηρήσαντες), attacked them with the aid of the Carthaginians and Campanians. Since the attack was not expected, they easily put the Selinuntians to flight,

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killing about a thousand of the soldiers and capturing all their loot (λείας). (Diod. Sic, 13.44.3–4, trans. Oldfather) Faced with the prospect of a protracted siege, the Roman soldiers turned to foraging (τὸ σιτολογεῖν) – the grain was ripe in the fields – but did so rather too incautiously (ἐκθυμότερον τοῦ δέοντος). At the sight of the enemy soldiers scattered all over the place (ἐσκεδασμένους κατὰ τῆς χώρας), the Carthaginians made a sortie against the foragers and easily put them to flight. One section then set out to plunder the Roman camp, while the other attacked the cover force. But the Romans were saved, then as on many other occasions, by the excellence of their institutions (ἡ τῶν ἐθισμῶν διαφορὰ): no one posted in a cover force is allowed to abandon his position or turn to flight, on pain of death. And so on that occasion too they bravely (γενναίως) stood their ground against a far superior enemy force; their losses were not slight, but their opponents suffered more. (Plb. 1.17.9–10, trans. Waterfield) These three passages all narrate similar events: soldiers go foraging – or looting, depending on whose point of view you take – and are attacked. In the first two passages they are defeated and suffer heavy losses; in the third passage they also suffer, but are ultimately successful because of the ‘excellence’ of the Roman system of military punishment. At first glance it is perhaps difficult to see why this particular collection of passages has been chosen to introduce a chapter that stresses the similarity of the classical and Hellenistic works of Greek historiography: they are in many ways quite different from each other; and finding three passages that all deal with an attack on foragers is no great feat in a corpus of historiography focused on military history. However, it is worth taking a moment to think about the implications of this. First of all, it is noteworthy where the focus of interest in these passages lies: each of them places the emphasis not on the foraging or looting, but on the attack on the looters and the fighting that follows. The historiographers are not interested in the types of items looted, the kinds of provisions foraged, or the way these were stored or transported or, in the case of human captives, guarded. What interests them is the fact that the foragers were attacked and the fact that this attack was brought on by their own carelessness. In addition, Polybius’ use of such a situation to demonstrate the effectiveness of the Roman system of military punishment shows that the situation was already a topos, or a stock situation, in historiography at his time. Second, it is worth noting the narratorial voice. The narrator in

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each of these cases is covert, remote and omniscient.1 He has removed himself so far from the narrative that the reader easily forgets his presence; the events unfold as if seen from a bird’s-eye view, or as if, in Benveniste’s famous phrase ‘events tell themselves’.2 However, if we look closer, there are subtle uses of focalisation, which betray the remote narrator’s interpretation of the situation and guide the reader’s perception of it. First, the narrator’s choice of words to express the idea of foraging/looting shows through whose eyes the action is seen and thereby where his sympathy lies: with the Greeks in Xenophon, with the Aegestaeans in Diodorus, with the Romans in Polybius. Second, the words used to characterise the foraging/looting subtly convey the narrator’s interpretation of the events: in the first passage the Greeks forage ‘carelessly and without taking due precautions’; in the second passage the looters scatter across the countryside ‘despising their foe’; and in the third passage the Romans forage ‘rather too incautiously’. These remarks guide the reader towards the interpretation that the soldiers in each case provoke the attack by acting carelessly and over-confidently. In addition, the passage from Polybius contains a short digression offering a causal explanation of why the Romans did not come to grief in this situation like so many before them. We shall return to the interest in causation displayed by the Greek historians below. These observations demonstrate some general characteristics of Greek historiography: it is predominantly concerned with military/ political matters (this is less true of Herodotus, and is the main difference between him and his successors), and it is predominantly narrated by a remote, omniscient narrator, but this narrator often provides more or less subtle interpretation guidance for their narratee by means of evaluative phrases, more or less discreetly interspersed throughout the narrative. The common focus on military history makes it natural that the Greek historiographers should share a number of story situations:3 battles, of course, both on land and at sea, as well as sieges, skirmishes  1 What I here call a ‘remote’ narrator could also be called an ‘external, covert’ narrator, e.g., De Jong 2004. For more detailed analyses of the narrators of Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon and Polybius, see the relevant chapters in De Jong et al. 2004. The Herodotean narrator has also been well discussed by Dewald 1987, 2002. The Diodoran narrator is discussed by Hau forthcoming.   2 Benveniste 1966: 241. The expression is also used by Barthes [1967] 1986: 131–2 and Genette [1969] 1976: 9.   3 Using the word ‘story’ is not meant to signal that I regard the events narrated in ancient Greek historiography as invented or fictional. It is used in its technical narratological sense as one half of the pair ‘story–discourse’ equivalent to ‘fabula–sjužet’.

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and ambushes. In addition, it is natural that they all recount the types of events that lead up to battles and the like, such as the planning and debates of assemblies and war councils, the outset of an expedition and the marching army, and everything that results from battles, such as the razing of cities, ravaging of countryside and dealing with prisoners. And in fact all of these are stock situations in the historiographical works of the period. A stock situation is defined by showing up repeatedly in the stories of Greek historiography, sometimes narrated extensively as a scene, at other times briefly as a summary, but in a way that is similar in its essentials. The similarity consists in certain stock events which tend to take place within a stock situation and in a similar narratorial interest in certain aspects of the situation, often manifesting itself as historiographical topoi (Table 12.1). It should be clear from the list of stock situations in Table 12.1 that some instances can be long, sometimes several pages of text, and include a large number of stock events. For example, the stock situation ‘Battle’ can be narrated extensively over several pages of text (e.g., Herodotus’ account of the battle of Marathon, Thucydides’ of the battle of Mantinea, Polybius’ of the battle of Cannae) or it can be narrated briefly, in a fast-moving summary which takes up a paragraph or two. But both of these modes of narrating a battle will contain a certain number of stock events: both of them are likely to begin with the deployment of troops making up the battle order on one or both sides, and both are likely to include a charge by one side, an eventual rout, and either a pursuit of the routed or a conscious decision not to pursue. A large number of the battle narratives also contain the use of some stratagem (typically troops hidden somewhere in the terrain, who jump out and fall on the enemy’s rear), and many of them have a passage where one or more important characters are killed, or at least a list of important people killed. Those are the stock events listed in Table 12.1. In addition, certain types of battle have extra stock events: battles in front of a city typically have a rush for the gates made by either attackers or defenders or both, while sea-battles usually have a section on capturing enemy ships or at least an enumeration of ships captured. A stock situation is a larger narrative unit that includes these shorter items within it. It is also possible for an event which can form its own stock situation, such as the ‘outset of an expedition’, simply to be mentioned in passing as part of another stock situation, such as ‘Build-up to battle’. At this point it is worth asking ourselves if we need the term ‘stock situation’ at all – is it perhaps not simply the case that if you boil it down to its essentials, all relevant historical events can fit into a quite

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Table 12.1  Stock situations, stock events and topoi Stock situation Before battle: Build-up to war

Inspection of troops

Stock eventsa

Topoia

Armament of opposing powers Envoys going back and forth Background to grievances explained Description of troops The commander’s reaction on inspecting them

Discussion of causes

The magnificence or battlereadiness of the troops Realism or over-confidence of commander Outset of army/expedition Magnificent preparations Over-confidence Goodbyes of those who are Foreshadowing of outcome staying behind of expedition, especially if it is going to fail Army crosses river Planning how to cross Ingenuity of the commander The crossing in coming up with stratagem Attacked while crossing Army crosses mountain Planning how to cross Carefulness or carelessness pass The crossing of commander Ambushed while crossing Harshness of mountain conditions Suspense Detailed descriptions of Suffering of the men Army marches through hardship Desperation or resoluteness difficult terrain (such Deaths of men and animals of the commander as snowy mountains or waterless deserts) Commander and advisors Advice given and taken or The ability or inability of the commander to listen to (war-council) rejected advice Speeches Anecdotal remarks Reasonableness or Pay negotiations between unreasonableness of army and commander or demands (rare) commander and superior Creation of suspense, Build-up to battle Marching/sailing to the place of battle (knowingly particularly before a battle famous in the reader’s time or unknowingly) Choosing a spot for battle Fear or excitement as the enemy approaches Battle harangue Deployment of troops The armies/fleets drawn up across from each other Army in camp Training The commander’s skill or Drinking and feasting at lack of it in keeping his leisure troops battle-ready

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Stock situation

Stock eventsa

Topoia

Military commander conducts sacrifices

Impatience of the troops Change of plans due to outcome

Piety or impiety of the commander

Foragers being attacked Fighting Reinforcements from the camp coming to help Discovering the enemy unexpectedly Close escape Building a device Training in some new skill

Foolish arrogance of careless foragers Ordered troops versus troops in disarray Daring or careless arrogance

Deployment of troops Charge Use of new device or skill Rout Pursuit Stratagem Killing of important opponents All of the above plus confusion

Heroic fighting Heroic deaths Skill and bravery or utter uselessness of commander

Reinforcements arrive Foraging

Reconnoitring Making improvements to equipment or fighting style Battle or similar: Battle (land-battle/sea-battle/ cavalry battle)

Night battle Siege

Breaking a naval blockade Invasion Betrayal of a city from the inside

Mutiny

Storm destroys battleships

Building of siege engines (besiegers) Building of fortifications (besieged)

Intelligence of the commander Discipline of the men

Confusion and suffering in the dark Panic Cleverness of commander or engineer(s)

Daring and skill of blockade breaker Ravaging army Impiety of invaders Violation of sanctuary Fear or determination of the invaded Elaborate plan resulting in Despicability of the traitors the opening of the city gate or cleverness of the plan and stupidity of those who were for the enemy fooled Slaughter of the political opponents of the traitors Outbreak of mutiny Low birth and despicability Quelling of mutiny of the ringleaders Skill of the commander in dealing with the situation The unpredictability of weather/fortune

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Storm destroys battleships Fall of a city

After battle: The victor after the victory

News of the outcome reaches the city (victorious or defeated) The defeated after the defeat Changeover of military commanders

Peace negotiations

Killing of inhabitants, more or less indiscriminately Looting Sparing or looting the temples Trophy and giving back the dead The victor and his troops (rewards and punishments) The victor and prisoners The victor and the booty The victor in the taken city Honouring of the victorious commander Celebrations or despair and mourning Measures taken to sue for peace or continue the fight Collecting the dead Despondency The defeated and the victors

Speeches Exchanging oaths

Not necessarily war-oriented: Assembly (civic or Speeches military) Reaction of the crowd/ army Receiving envoys/ envoys Good or bad treatment of arrive the envoys Speeches Defection of ally

Murdering of garrison or representatives (Greeks). Joining an enemy force (barbarians)

Topoia The stupidity of not listening to advice Divine vengeance The suffering of the defeated Contrast between their former power and wealth and their present misery

Judgement on the victor’s treatment of the defeated The typical inability of human beings to handle good fortune properly Measures for distributing booty Judgement on the excessiveness or moderation of the reaction Dignity or lack of it of the defeated Difference between leaving and incoming commander Issues of new commander threatening to take the glory for former commander’s achievements Sincerity or insincerity of negotiators Fickleness of the crowd Sincerity or insincerity of speakers Dignity or lack of it of speakers Despicability of treachery The responsibility placed with the superior city and its poor treatment of the ally

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stock situations, Stock situation

Stock eventsa

Arbitration in political conflict Revolution

Indirect speech

Return of a hero Court trial Epidemic

Rise of a tyrant Evil deeds/deterioration of a tyrant

Ruler and subject/wise man in conversation

Death of a ruler

Court intrigue (often sexual)

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Planning revolution Murder of opponents Escalation of violence Change of regime Magnificent return Celebration by the crowd Speeches Reaction of the crowd Symptoms Dying How to get rid of the bodies Rising through the ranks Winning popular support Taking power Murders of members of the elite Humiliation of elite women Confiscations of property Outlandish forms of torture Direct speech of the subject/wise man Punishment of the subject/ wise man Ruler changes his ways Mourning or rejoicing of populace Passing on or division of powers Mourning of wife Building of memorial Forged letters Public confrontations between opposed courtiers

Consulting an oracle

Asking the question Receiving the answer Interpreting the answer

Omens and portents

Interpretation Fear or joy of perceived recipient(s) Conversation, often with direct speech

Feast or symposium

Topoia

The horrors of civil war

The justice or injustice of this welcome Justice or injustice of proceedings Divine punishment

Stupidity of those who let him take power Evils of tyranny

Ability or inability of ruler to listen to advice Ability or inability of subject/wise man to tread the fine line of diplomacy Narratorial obituary

Despicability of court intrigue The victim often a good, honest military man, his opponent effeminate and depraved Narratorial interpretation of response Blindness of original interpreter Divine intervention or popular belief in it Dangers of excessive drinking

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Stock situation

Stock eventsa

Feast or symposium

Drinking, often excessive Careless remarks made in drunkenness (which lead to violence) Violence caused by drunkenness Procession Games Public feasts Desperate circumstances or oracle prompt the decision Founders leave the mother city Rules for who can go and what their rights should be Arrival and initial setbacks Founder honoured as hero Circumstances of the need for a law-code Introduction of law-giver Details of law-code (law-giver becomes the victim of his own laws) Detailed description of monuments Natural progression

King offering spectacle and celebration Foundation of city

Law-giving

Building projects of a ruler Early people living through a natural cycle of constitutions Gradual civilising of people/mankind Origin story of god or hero

a

Natural progression Actions of culture hero Birth Wanderings Benefactions Deification

Topoia

Magnificence of the expense Tastelessness of this kind of display

Odd personality of law-giver Oddness of laws explained

Magnificence of the building project Distinction between good and bad types of constitutions Rationalisation of myths Rationalisation of myths

Not all stock events or topoi are necessarily present in every instance.

limited list of basic situations, and that these are the situations all historians have to work with, ancient Greek or not? However, if we consider this question carefully, we discover that many events are, in fact, not turned into stock situations and are hardly mentioned by the Greek historiographers. Some of them, such as more or less everything done by women, are left out because they were simply not interesting to the male authors and not deemed historically significant. For other non-stock situations it is harder to find a reason: why is there no stock situation covering the practicalities of foraging, but only one dealing

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with foragers being attacked? Why is there no stock situation detailing how the wounded are tended after a battle? We hear about the putting up of trophies, the giving back or collection of the dead, the awarding of prizes to the best fighters, but nothing about what happened to the wounded.4 Why is there no stock situation narrating the celebration of a religious festival, describing the procession, the athletic games, the theatre productions? These were hugely important events, but athletic festivals are only mentioned as chronological markers or when they get caught up in inter-state warfare (like the Olympic games in 420 bc, Thuc. 5.49–50), and religious festivals are only described when the narrator wants to comment on the extravagance of a particular instance (like Polybius on Antiochus IV at 30.25–6). The third column of Table 12.1 lists some typical narratorial topoi often connected with the stock situation and its events, such as ‘Foolish arrogance of careless foragers’ in the case of the ‘Foragers being attacked’ stock event. This is perhaps the most interesting part of the stock situation model because it shows the function of each stock situation on the level of narratorial argument, beyond the narrative level of merely moving the story forwards. So, for example, the stock situation of ‘Foraging’ invariably narrates how foragers are attacked by the enemy, usually because of their own carelessness, and does not include any of the practicalities of foraging. Likewise, the stock situation ‘Commander and advisors (war-council)’, although it could theoretically be used for all sorts of things, such as showing the psychological relationship between the commander and his advisors or the jostling for position of the advisors, is actually mainly used to show the commander’s ability or inability to take good advice (e.g., Hdt. 8.68–9; Thuc. 3.29–32; Diod. Sic. 17.53.3–7). Again, in the stock situation ‘Outset of army/expedition’, it would be possible to focus on the exact numbers of various kinds of troops, the details of their equipment and their battle-readiness; but in reality the focus is almost always on the magnificence of the preparations (without specific numbers) and the great expectations of the ruler or people sending out the expedition, imparting to the narratee a sense of foreboding that this will all go terribly wrong (e.g., Hdt. 7.20–41; Thuc. 6.30–2; Diod. Sic. 13.80). One important element of Greek historiography is missing from Table 12.1: digressions. All of the ancient Greek historiographers make use of digressions. Some are narrative digressions; these show causal connections between events on the main storyline and earlier   4 For a discussion of the events that are and are not included in the post-victory narratives of the Greek historiographers, see Hau 2013.

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(analeptic digression) or later (proleptic digression) events, and they are covered by the table. Others are non-narrative in the sense that they do not move the story forward, but constitute pauses in it5 and have for that reason been left out of the table. Such digressions can contain geographical or ethnographical information, thoughts on historical methodology or historiographical selection and arrangement, polemics against predecessors, or practically or morally didactic musings provoked by the events narrated. It is common to all of these digressions that the narrator takes on a different presence from that in the narrative of events: more obviously present, more involved, more opinionated. I shall return to this narratorial dichotomy below. Turning from the table of stock situations to how these buildingblocks are used by the individual historiographers, we do see some differences. The most striking is that between Herodotus and the rest. On the one hand, many of these stock situations are vital parts of Herodotus’ Histories – land-battle, commander and advisors, army ravaging the countryside, the victor after the victory – and some stock situations even find their archetypal form in Herodotus, such as the ‘Ruler and subject/wise man in conversation’. However, Herodotus also includes situations so unusual that they do not recur elsewhere in Greek historiography and so cannot be called ‘stock situations’ – such as Arion being saved by the dolphin (1.23–4) and the Egyptian brothers who steal from the king’s sealed treasury (2.121–2). These are great and memorable stories, but they were not imitated by Herodotus’ historiographical successors and so did not turn into stock situations of the genre. For that reason they retain a closer relationship with the folktales on which they were probably based than with the genre of historiography as we have come to know it. Another difference in the use of stock situations shows a development from classical to Hellenistic historiography: Thucydides is interested in the actions and decisions that lead to war or campaigns within a war; he spends a large part of his narrative on the preparation phase before wars, battles and expeditions and offers long scenes detailing the planning and debating. Xenophon has slightly fewer of these preparatory scenes; and when we get to Polybius and Diodorus, these types of stock situations are relatively rare compared with the enormous emphasis placed on the situations that follow battles, wars   5 The terminology used here (analeptic and proleptic digressions and pauses) was created by the founding father of narratology, Gérard Genette [1972] (1980), and has been used to great effect by Tim Rood (1998) in his analysis of Thucydides. It is also championed by De Jong et al. 2004.

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and sieges, with a particular focus on the behaviour of both victors and defeated.6 Now, it is perhaps not surprising that it is possible to come up with a list of stock situations covering the works of Thucydides, Xenophon and Polybius: these historiographers did, after all, write the same type of history, one which was focused on military and political matters and which to a large extent ignores the ‘marvels’ which had fascinated Herodotus. It is more surprising that Diodorus Siculus fits into Table 12.1. Diodorus wrote world history: a forty-volume work covering the time from the creation of man to his own day and all known civilisations, including the mythical period. Nevertheless, most of his narrative is made up out of exactly the same stock situations as the other histories examined. In fact, Diodorus’ Bibliotheke can be incorporated into the table by adding just two extra stock situations, which appear repeatedly in his early books: ‘Gradual civilising of people/mankind’ and ‘Origin story of god or hero’. It is remarkable that apart from these two extra stock situations his narratives about mythological and supernatural figures such as Apollo, Dionysus, Isis and Osiris are covered by the stock situations already in the table, such as ‘Outset of army’, ‘Foundation of city’ and ‘Return of a hero’. It seems that the tradition of imitatio was compelling, and that by the first century bc, if not earlier, there were very fixed perceptions of what events historiography should and should not address. Historigraphy narrated many situations occurring in warfare, but not all of them: treatment of the wounded is left out, as is interrogation of captives, the entire practical side of guarding and transporting prisoners-of-war and almost all interaction with camp-followers. And even within the stock situations there were apparently fixed parameters for what events should be the focus of historians, and where the focus of their narratorial argument should lie. This, then, is part of what makes Greek historiography Greek. OTHER CHARACTERISTICS Let us now take a step back from stock situations in the narrative of events and, turning our gaze to the entirety of the historical works, go in search of what else is characteristic of classical and Hellenistic Greek historiography. There are at least four main characteristics:   6 For the similarity in the treatment of the victorious commander in the classical and Hellenistic Greek historiographers, see Hau 2008.

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First, there is a strong interest in causality, that is, in establishing causal links between events and going to great narrative lengths to explain them. All of our preserved Greek historiographers repeatedly digress at length from their chronological main frame in order to explain the causes of important events. This is true as early as Herodotus, who famously sets out in his preface to uncover the causes of the Persian Wars: Here are presented the results of the enquiry carried out by Herodotus of Halicarnassus. The purpose is to prevent the traces of human events from being erased by time, and to preserve the fame of the important and remarkable achievements produced by both Greeks and non-Greeks; among the matters covered is, in particular, the cause of the hostilities between Greeks and nonGreeks. (δι᾽ ἣν αἰτίην ἐπολέμησαν ἀλλήλοισι). (Hdt. 1.1, trans. Waterfield) Causal connections are also a major structuring element of Herodotus’ narrative and often form the link between one story and the next, as in the following examples: So that – as well as seeing the world – is why Solon was abroad from Athens (αὐτῶν δὴ ὦν τούτων καὶ τῆς θεωρίης ἐκδημήσας ὁ Σόλων εἵνεκεν). (Hdt. 1.30.1, trans. Waterfield) After Solon’s departure, the weight of divine anger descended on Croesus, in all likelihood for thinking that he was the happiest man in the world. (μετὰ δὲ Σόλωνα οἰχόμενον ἔλαβέ ἐκ θεοῦ νέμεσις μεγάλη Κροῖσον, ὡς εἰκάσαι, ὅτι ἐνόμισε ἑωυτὸν εἶναι ἀνθρώπων ἁπάντων ὀλβιώτατον.) (Hdt. 1.34.1, trans. Waterfield) Thucydides was at least as interested in causality. His famous words about the ‘truest cause’ of the Peloponnesian War have sparked much controversy: As to why (τὰς αἰτίας) they broke the treaty, I have written down first the complaints and the disputes, so that no one may ever inquire whence so great a war arose among the Greeks. Now the most genuine cause (τὴν μὲν γὰρ ἀληθεστάτην πρόφασιν), though least spoken of, was this: it was the Athenians, in my opinion, as they were growing great and furnishing an occasion of fear to the Lacedaemonians, who compelled the latter to go to war. But the complaints of each side, spoken of openly, were the following,

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complaints which led the parties to break the treaty and enter a state of war. (Thuc. 1.23, trans. Sealey)7 Moreover, a major function of Thucydides’ speeches seems to be to reveal the human motivation behind historical events (e.g., Pericles’ speech about going to war at 1.140–4 and Alcibiades’ speech about the Sicilian expedition at 6.16–23). Likewise, causation is a key issue for Polybius, who at the beginning of his narrative of the Second Punic War spends pages discussing the difference between cause, pretext and beginning (3.6–7; only the introduction to the discussion is quoted here): Anyone who claims that these incidents were the causes of the war has not grasped the distinction, the considerable difference, between a starting point (ἀρχή) and a cause (αἰτία) or pretext (πρόφασις). A cause or pretext always comes first and a starting point comes last. I take it that the starting point of anything consists of the first application in the real world of a course of action that has already been decided upon, while the cause is what first influences one’s judgements and decisions, or, in other words, what first influences one’s ideas, feeling, reasoning about the matter, and all one’s decision-making and deliberative faculties. (Plb. 3.6.6–7, trans. Waterfield) This fascination with causality is perhaps less obvious in Xenophon, who generally favours a more strictly chronological narrative; but in fact he also deals in causal analeptic digressions, as in this example: At the same time as these campaigns of Dercylidas in Asia, Sparta was having trouble with Elis. The Spartans had been angry for a long time with the Eleans for the following reasons (ὅτι). First Elis had made an alliance with Athens, Argos and Mantinea, then they had debarred the Spartans from competing in the horse races and athletic contests at the Olympic games, the pretext being that a judgement had been awarded against Sparta. And they had gone further than this. Lichas, a Spartan, had made over his chariot to the Thebans and the Thebans had been announced as the winners; but when Lichas came in to put the garland on the head of the charioteer, the Eleans had beaten him, though he was an old man, and driven him out. After this, when Agis had been   7 This translation, which emphasises the superlative in ἀληθεστάτην, is championed by Eckstein 2003.

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sent, in obedience to an oracle, to sacrifice to Zeus, the Eleans refused to allow him to pray for victory in war, saying that it was an ancient and established principle that Greeks should not consult the oracle with regard to a war waged against Greeks. So Agis had to go away without having sacrificed. With all these reasons for anger, the ephors and the Assembly decided to make the Eleans see reason. (Xen. 3.2.21–2, trans. Warner) Moreover, most of Xenophon’s often puzzling dialogues seem to be included at least partly in order to explain the causes of events in the main frame of military and political history (e.g., the conversation between Lysander and Agesilaus at 3.4.7–10). The causation in the Greek historiographers is most often psychological, that is, based on the emotions and thought processes of individuals or groups involved in decision-making. The case of Diodorus is again particularly interesting. Like Herodotus and Polybius, he uses causal expressions such as ‘such and such happened for the following reasons (διὰ τοιαύτας τινὰς αἰτίας)’ to introduce analeptic digressions which ostensibly explain the state of affairs on his main chronological line. The digressions, however, are often more a mixed bag of various things that had happened in the past leading up to the point where the story has got to than any real attempt at finding the causes of the story events. An example is 16.2.2– 5, which purports to give the reasons, aitiai, for Philip II’s accession to the throne of Macedon, although the translator, Sherman, wisely decided to translate it as ‘in the following manner’:8 During their term of office Philip, the son of Amyntas and father of Alexander who defeated the Persians in war, succeeded to the Macedonian throne in the following manner (διὰ τοιαύτας τινὰς αἰτίας). After Amyntas had been defeated by the Illyrians and forced to pay tribute to his conquerors, the Illyrians, who had taken Philip, the youngest son of Amyntas, as a hostage, placed him in the care of the Thebans. They in turn entrusted the lad to the father of Epameinondas and directed him both to keep careful watch over his ward and to superintend his upbringing and education. Since Epameinondas had as his instructor a philosopher of the Pythagorean school, Philip, who was reared along with him, acquired a wide acquaintance with the Pythagorean   8 This passage has often been criticised for its confused chronology in presenting Philip II and Epaminondas as being of the same age, but that does not concern us here.

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philosophy. Inasmuch as both students showed natural ability and diligence they proved to be superior in deeds of valour. Of the two, Epameinondas underwent the most rigorous tests and battles, and invested his fatherland almost miraculously with the leadership of Hellas, while Philip, availing himself of the same initial training, achieved no less fame than Epameinondas. For after the death of Amyntas, Alexander, the eldest of the sons of Amyntas, succeeded to the throne. But Ptolemy of Alorus assassinated him and succeeded to the throne and then in similar fashion Perdiccas disposed of him and ruled as king. But when he was defeated in a great battle by the Illyrians and fell in the action, Philip his brother, who had escaped from his detention as a hostage, succeeded to the kingdom, now in a bad way. (Diod. Sic. 16.2.2–5, trans. Sherman) This is interesting because it shows Diodorus adhering to a tradition of historiography that is obsessed with causation: he takes over the form of a narrative concerned to explain causes, but he does not always provide the substance and analysis which that form usually conveys. In the twenty-first century, after 2,000 years of this tradition and in the shadow of positivist historiography, it is perhaps difficult to imagine a type of historiography that is not based on causation. But it is worth remembering that the Greek historiographers could have instituted a very different form of the genre. A narrative of historical events does not have to privilege causal links; it can give precedence to strict chronology, as seems to have been the practice of the Roman Annales, or to the importance bestowed on certain types of events by tradition, like the Fasti. Or it could be structured along genealogical lines and more or less ignore the causes and results of actions of the family in question when these causes or results take place outside the family, which may well have been the case in the now lost works of Hecataeus of Miletus. What the surviving classical and Hellenistic Greek historiographers have in common is a privileging of causation over these other means of structuring a historical narrative. Moreover, their causation is of the same type, namely psychological and mostly secular, characteristics which come into sharp relief when one reads Eusebius and the tradition of Christian historiography he inaugurated. Greek historiography is also characterised by its didactic slant. Thucydides (1.22.4), Polybius (1.2.8, 1.4.11 and repeatedly throughout the work) and Diodorus (1.1.1, 1.1.4 and repeatedly throughout the work) explicitly say that they intend their readers to learn from their narratives of the past, and Herodotus (1.5.3–4) and Xenophon

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(1.5.4) imply as much. The didacticism is both practical and moral, and it is striking how similar the basic messages are: on the practical side, it is all about how to be a good military commander; on the moral side, all the historians (more or less explicitly) advocate moderation and self-control, awareness that good fortune might not last, dignity, justice, loyalty to friends and city and courage tempered with reason.9 In the overtly moralising Roman historiographers these moral parameters change or take on slightly different meanings: for instance, the instability of good fortune becomes less significant, and patriotism and discipline take on more importance than loyalty to friends and family. It is therefore fair to say that these moral values are characteristic of particularly Greek historiography, as indeed they are of Greek literature generally. Third, the extant classical and Hellenistic Greek historiographers share a remarkably objective even-handedness in treating the two sides in a conflict. Herodotus gives equal weight to the great deeds done by Greeks and barbarians and offers sympathetic treatment of many of his Persian characters; Thucydides has Athenians and Spartans as equally (un)sympathetic protagonists; Xenophon’s Hellenica, although biased to a degree towards Sparta and against Thebes, gives a multi-focalised, panhellenic account of numerous Greek poleis; and Polybius shows the Punic Wars from the perspective of both Romans and Carthaginians. Such general absence of partisanship is lost with Sallust and Livy. Finally, as mentioned above, these works of history share an interesting dichotomy in terms of narration. All five surviving works of classical and Hellenistic Greek historiography alternate between a strict narrative of events narrated by a remote, omniscient narrator, giving the illusion of seeing events directly without any kind of mediation, and argumentative digressions marked by a strong narratorial presence where the narrator discusses the task of the historian, interprets events for the reader or argues with his predecessors.10 This alternating between two narratorial strategies was taken over by the Roman historiographers and recurs in much of later historiography, but it is not only way to write history, and it is striking that all the Greek historiographers did it similarly.

  9 I shall discuss this further in a monograph currently in preparation. 10 See Marincola 1997: 6–11. Dewald 1987, 2002, offer an insightful discussion of the different facets of the Herodotean narrator.

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CONCLUSION We have now identified five areas of shared characteristics, which I argue define Greek historiography: similarity in the types of situations they describe, both larger stock situations and smaller stock events with attending topoi; similarity in structuring the narrative along the lines of causation and in looking for causes; similarity in having a partly didactic purpose, practical and moral; similarity in treating the two sides in a conflict in an even-handed manner; and finally similarity in alternating between two narratorial modes, one of them remote and giving an illusion of transparency, the other personal, involved and strongly argumentative. How did these characteristics originate? Homeric influence can perhaps account for the apparent transparency of narration and the even-handed treatment of opponents, probably partly due to the fact that both Homer and the historiographers were aiming at a panhellenic audience. There was probably also inspiration from other early prose genres, such as those of the Hippocratic writers and the Sophists, which may well be where the interest in causation and the involved, argumentative narrator mode originate.11 Alternatively, it is possible that early historiography was not consciously inspired by either Homer or other prose writings, but rather originated from the same aesthetic values and intellectual preoccupations that had generated them, as an expression of the ancient Greek mind. However it happened, it seems that this combination of characteristics was uniquely Greek.

11 As brilliantly shown for Herodotus by R. Thomas 2000.

13 HELIODORUS THE HELLENE J. R. Morgan

At the end of his novel, Aethiopica, Heliodorus identifies himself thus: τοιόνδε πέρας ἔσχε τὸ σύνταγμα τῶν περὶ Θεαγένην καὶ Χαρίκλειαν Αἰθιοπικῶν· ὃ συνέταξεν ἀνὴρ Φοῖνιξ Ἐμισηνός, τῶν ἀφ’Ἡλίου γένος Θεοδοσίου παῖς Ἡλιόδωρος. So concludes the Aethiopica, the story of Theagenes and Charicleia, the work of a Phoenician from the city of Emesa, one of the clan of Descendants of the Sun, Theodosius’ son, Heliodorus. (10.41.4)1 There are many systems of identity at work in this single sentence, but the crucial point is that the author appears to define himself, in terms of race, city and religious affiliation, as something other than Greek. His home city, Emesa (modern Homs), was the centre of a religious cult which by the imperial period had become identified with the sun, although its origins may be different: this was the cult that Elagabalus brought to Rome in the third century. It is regarded with suspicion, distaste and horror as archetypally barbarian by our sources for his reign. It is not clear exactly what Heliodorus means by calling himself a ‘Descendant of the Sun’: the phrase is not otherwise attested in connection with the Emesan cult, and seems to have been coined to achieve precise literary effects in this context, but it is inescapable that some reference is intended to the solar cult for which Emesa was famous. I have argued elsewhere for a specifically Emesan ideological dimension in the novel, shared in some degree with Philostratus’ fictionalised biography of Apollonius of Tyana, written at the commission of the Emesan empress Julia Domna.2   1 Translations of Heliodorus are taken from Morgan [1989b] 2008.  2 Morgan 2009.

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heliodorus the hellene 261 When we turn to the plot of the novel, we find similar indications of a conscious self-distancing from canonical Hellenism. Whereas the other Greek novels work with a broad story-pattern of Greek protagonists leaving a Greek centre, travelling to the margins of a Hellenocentric world and eventually returning for a happy ending in the centre they left at the beginning,3 Heliodorus has a heroine, Charicleia, who is Ethiopian and whose journey takes her from Ethiopia to Greece and back again. In this sense his map has been re-centred on a place which is marginal from a Greek perspective and from the perspective of which Greece is a place of distant exile and displacement.4 The moral geography of the novel also inscribes the primacy of Ethiopia. Athens figures only in a secondary narrative, where it is presented as the locale of a selfish and carnal erotic intrigue.5 This structural relegation and negative moral marking of Athens constitute a deliberate alienation from the cultural centre of mainstream Hellenism. Delphi, which is similarly segregated from the primary narrative and is the stage for events presented only through the secondary narrative of Calasiris, fares a little better: Charicles, the Delphic priest of Apollo and the heroine’s adopted father, is a likeable fellow but not the brightest bulb in the chandelier. Egypt is the home of the charismatic but ambivalent priest Calasiris, an analogue of Odysseus, who plans the heroine’s abduction from Delphi and tricks her foster-father, and whose narrative to Cnemon is equally manipulative. In Ethiopia, on the other hand, a just and pious king is advised by a cabinet of Gymnosophists, naked sages who embody divinely inspired wisdom. He is the heroine’s true father, and it is only on her return to the land of her birth that Charicleia can regain her true self and escape from her fictitious Greek identity The moment when she and her beloved are invested with the priesthood of the sun and moon, in decidedly non-Greek vestments, seems to be the moment when they assume Ethiopian identity (10.41.2).6 Her journey from Greece to

  3 In Chariton the Greek centre is Syracuse; in Xenophon of Ephesus it is Ephesus. Longus’ Daphnis and Chloe plays with the convention: the centre is Mytilene, but for these protagonists the margins are constituted by the Lesbian countryside a day’s journey from the city, and even the generically compulsory pirates do not take them further than swimming distance from the beach.   4 Charicleia’s father refers to her exile in Greece as one ‘to the uttermost ends of the earth’ (ἐπὶ πέρατα γῆς ἔσχατα, 10.16.6).  5 Cnemon’s narrative, which is split between the first two books; see Morgan [1989a] 1999 for discussion.  6 Charicles’ focalised realisation that this is the fulfilment of the Delphic oracle narrated by Calasiris at 2.25.5 identifies this moment as that referred to in the oracle’s phrase λευκὸν ἐπὶ κροτάφων στέμμα μελαινομένων (‘a crown of white on

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Ethiopia is thus not only a return to a non-Greek centre but an ascent to an ideal realm, to which flawed secondary characters from Athens and Egypt are unable or unfitted to attain. The Ethiopian royal family claim descent from the sun, their national god and founder of the race (4.8.2–3). This constructs an analogy with Heliodorus himself, who is also a ‘Descendant of the Sun’, and suggests that we should read his Ethiopia as a displaced or metaphorical version of Emesa. The Emesan reading flows backwards from the author’s self-identification in the final sentence of his text. Charicleia’s truest self is thus aligned with the Emesan cult.7 On this basis, it is easy enough to construct a reading of the novel as an ideological contestation of Hellenism by a man whose own origins located him on the margins of the classical world, not just geographically but culturally and in terms of perceived status. We need not doubt that Heliodorus, as a historical individual, had a nonGreek, possibly Semitic, name of which ‘Heliodorus’ is the nearest familiar Greek equivalent: exactly parallel cases are epigraphically attested.8 However, this is only half the story, though half the story it is. A powerful current runs in the opposite direction, collapsing the antithesis between Greece and Ethiopia, and conflating rather than opposing them. The love of the protagonists begins at a religious ceremony in the Pythian games, and climaxes in another religious occasion at Meroe: Delphi and Meroe thus stand in structural symmetry, and at the very climax of the story an explicit identification is made between Delphic Apollo and Ethiopian Helios, who stands for the Emesan sun-god (10.36.3: τὸν πάτριον ὑμῶν θεὸν Ἀπόλλωνα, τὸν αὐτὸν ὄντα καὶ Ἥλιον). In the last book, when the plot finally reaches Ethiopia, it turns out sure enough to be an idealised solar kingdom, but one where human sacrifice is practised. Book 10 is in fact an aetiology of the abolition of this rite, which is a stereotypical marker of primitive barbarism. Both the king and his chief Gymnosophist disapprove of the practice of human sacrifice, but have acquiesced in its perpetuation because its abolition would be unpopular. The final perfection of Ethiopia is achieved by its Hellenisation, which coincides with the moment when the Hellenised heroine and the truly Hellenic hero become fully Ethiopian. As part of the process leading to this resolution, Theagenes is made to wrestle, as the champion of

(footnote 6 continued) blackening brows’): the protagonists’ metaphorical ‘blackening’ indicates their new Ethiopian-ness.   7 The argument is developed in detail in Morgan 2009: 265–8.   8 Whitmarsh 2011: 110.

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heliodorus the hellene 263 the Meroitic populace, with an Ethiopian giant, whom he defeats by the exercise of archetypal Greek skill and guile against barbaric brute force, a victory promptly welcomed by the Ethiopian populace (10.31–2). Greek is spoken in Ethiopia, partly of course as a narrative convenience, but also partly as a gesture of ideology, a marker that distinguishes the civilised king and his advisors from the primitive and monoglot Ethiopian crowd that bays for blood. On the other hand, it is that same crowd that ultimately forces Hydaspes’ hand and demands Charicleia’s reprieve from human sacrifice (10.17.1), and the revelation that Greek is spoken and valued by the Ethiopian court is made in a morally ambivalent context early in the novel when a Greek merchant thinks of transporting the most venal and venereal of the Athenian cast list, the courtesan Thisbe, to Meroe to be the queen’s playmate and intimate companion (2.24.3). To pull all this together, it seems that Heliodorus is playing a double game. On the one hand he seems to be staking a claim for the primacy of Ethiopia (which appears to stand for his native city) by decentring and re-centring his imaginative world away from Greece, and on the other simultaneously accommodating Ethiopia (or we might say his native city) to classical Hellenism. The two forces, which we can call Helleno-centrifugal and Helleno-centripetal, are poised in exact balance. So far I have been recapping positions which have been explored at greater length elsewhere by myself and, with greater eloquence and sophistication than I could ever muster, by Tim Whitmarsh in his brilliant book on the Greek novels.9 In what follows I want to try to come at the issue from a different and argumentative angle. The discipline of Classics has always been an ideological one, often conscripted or volunteering to support prevailing cultural hierarchies. In the nineteenth century, its perceived Eurocentricity was employed to validate myths of European superiority and so authorise European colonialism, cultural and political as well as military. Its high cultural status made it an element of the ‘white man’s burden’ to bring civilisation to the ‘inferior’ races. Classics was central to the educational curricula imposed across the British Empire: my earliest Oxford Classical Texts, bought in the 1960s, bear imprints from Calcutta and Ibadan. For Heliodorus specifically, Wilhelm Capelle, in a now notorious article, published just eight years after the final destruction of National Socialism, constructed a vicious circle by which   9 Whitmarsh 2011; on Heliodorus specifically see 108–35, but the second half of the book is also studded with Heliodoran jewels.

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racial ­inferiority explained (supposed) literary weakness and literary ­weakness valorised notions of racial inferiority: Als echter Sophist schmückt sich H. überall mit fremden Federn, besonders aus Homer und Euripides. Seine Versuche zu tiefsinnigen Aphorismen verraten sich dem Kenner ohne Weiteres als verwässerter Abklatsch von früheren griechischen Autoren. Obgleich er alle Augenblicke die Gottheit eingreifen läßt, hat er doch gar kein inneres Verhältnis zur griechischen Religiosität, zu den griechischen Göttern . . . Was aber den von der klassischen Antike Herkommenden noch schwerer anstößt: er wirkt oder will hier und da wirken durch krasseste Wundererzählungen, die ein echter Grieche niemals geglaubt . . . Aber H. ist eben überhaupt kein Grieche, sondern ein hellenisierter Syrer aus dem semitischen Emesa. Daraus erklärt sich vieles, auch in seinem Wesen als Schriftsteller.10 As the ideologies which Classics was once conscripted to authorise have become less attractive, we deconstruct and reconstruct the discipline to accommodate it to current orthodoxies, as a necessary survival strategy, and discover the ancient were liberals, feminists and pacifists before us. As for Heliodorus, the postcolonial imagination finds something sympathetic and alluring in the idea of the outsider, the representative of a subaltern culture coerced into seeing the world through the eyes of an alien power, reclaiming a distinct identity in contestation with the dominant cultural power, or at least problematising the conception of a dominant culture in a multicultural world. If that is what we want to find, we can find it if we look, and not altogether wrongly. Politically and personally, I am very much on board with the ideological agendas that drive such a reading, but I am not convinced that we understand Heliodorus best by making him one of us, or that, in the last resort, we are helping ourselves by not making the effort to think outside our own preferences. In the rest of this chapter, I want to suggest ways in which the Aethiopica might be better read as an endorsement, assertion and extension of Hellenism. First, I want to question the assumption that there is a polarity or tension, real or perceived, between being Greek and being Emesan. The cities of the eastern empire were deeply Hellenised, and existed within the envelope of a more or less homogeneous Greek culture. Local cultural identities and differences certainly existed and were important, as they always were everywhere, but it may be better to 10 Capelle 1953: 166–7.

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think of them as individuated subsets of an overarching, ecumenical Greekness rather than as in fundamental opposition to it. The Hellenism of these cities, that is to say, was fully internalised. To stay within the Greek novels, Achilles Tatius’ hero-narrator Clitophon is a native of Phoenician Tyre, and there is some play in that novel with the idea of φοῖνιξ in all its senses,11 but Clitophon shows no sign of considering himself not-Greek, and every sign of viewing himself as a product of Greek paideia. He is not ‘othered’ in any way relative to his Byzantine (and thus echt-Greek) beloved. The novel even constructs a Hellenocentric narrative structure centred on the coastal cities of Phoenicia. Lucian is a well-known example of an individual who acquired Greek paideia personally and consciously; but his Greekness is nonetheless internalised for being acquired rather than inherited, and his world-view is entirely Greek. The novelist Iamblichus, whose Babyloniaca survives only in Photius’ epitome, supplemented by a couple of fragments and dozens of citations in the Suda, is a more complicated case. According to Photius’ summary he presented himself as a Babylonian with a Greek education,12 but a marginal note in one of the manuscripts of Photius, apparently written by someone who still had access to the un-epitomised text of the novel, says that Iamblichus was (as his name suggests) an autochthonous Syrian, who was taught the Babylonian language and Babylonian stories by a tutor, and subsequently practised Greek so as to become a good rhetor.13 The most plausible way to square these two pieces of evidence is to imagine a text in which an ‘authorial’ Iamblichus, representing himself as by this time imbued with Greek culture, ‘reported’ a story told to him in his youth by a fictitious Babylonian. The story is clearly ‘othered’, but it is ‘other’ from a Greek perspective which the ‘author’, ethnically Syrian but culturally Greek, proclaims himself as sharing without question. The precise origins of the novelist Iamblichus are not known, but his name

11 It cannot be a coincidence that Achilles’ novel includes extended passages on the date palm (1.17.2–5), purple dye (2.11.4–8) and the phoenix bird (3.25.1–7), representing every possible sense of the word. 12 §10, p. 32 Habrich: λέγει δὲ καὶ ἑαυτὸν Βαβυλώνιον εἶναι ὁ συγγραφεύς . . . μαθεῖν δὲ καὶ τὴν Ἑλληνικὴν παιδείαν. 13 p. 2 Habrich: οὗτος ὁ Ἰάμβλιχος Σύρος ἦν γένος πατρόθεν καὶ μητρόθεν, Σύρος δὲ οὐχὶ τῶν ἐπῳκηκότων τὴν Συρίαν Ἑλλήνων, ἀλλὰ τῶν αὐτοχθόνων, γλῶσσαν δὲ Σύραν εἰδὼς καὶ τοῖς ἐκείνων ἔθεσι ζῶν, ἕως αὐτὸν τροφεύς . . . Βαβυλωνίαν τε γλῶσσαν καὶ ἤθη καὶ λόγους μεταδιδάσκει . . . Ὁ μὲν οὖν Ἰάμβλιχος οὗτος Σύραν τὴν [καὶ] πάτριον γλῶσσαν εἰδώς, ἐπιμαθῶν [καὶ] τὴν Βαβυλωνίαν, μετὰ ταῦτα καὶ τὴν Ἕλληνά φησιν ἀσκῆσαι καὶ χρῆσι λαβεῖν, ὡς ἀγαθὸς ῥήτωρ γένοιτο.

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is attested among the princelings of Emesa.14 There is a good chance that what he meant by calling himself ‘Syrian’ and what Heliodorus meant by calling himself ‘Phoenician’ are exactly the same thing. There is one passage of Heliodorus where there is a separation of Greek and Phoenician. This is where Calasiris encounters a group of Phoenician merchants, one of whom has just won the wrestling competition at the Pythian games. They are celebrating a feast in honour of their local god, Heracles, and some play is made of the fact that Tyre has been victorious among the Greeks.15 The Phoenicians are further characterised as ‘outsiders’ by their immediate assumption that the Egyptian Calasiris is a Greek. This, however, is not an ideological assertion of Phoenician difference, but merely an element of the dramatic setting of the story in the sixth–fifth century bce: this group of Phoenicans represent Phoenicia before the conquests of Alexander, and thus must be presented as mildly ‘other’ even by an author who calls himself Phoenician but whose perspective is culturally Greek and implies a culturally Greek readership. At the end of his novel Heliodorus defines himself as Emesan by relation to the cult of the sun. Although the orgiastic version of the religion introduced to Rome by Elagabalus was easily represented as barbaric and oriental, both Philostratus and Heliodorus are concerned to purge the religion of its negative connotations.16 If Heliodorus is correctly dated in the mid-fourth century,17 he was roughly contemporary with the Emperor Julian, who exploits the Emesan religion as part of his construction of philosophical paganism. Julian’s Hymn to the King Sun is a difficult and abstruse work of Neo-Platonist philosophy, whose thought is based on Iamblichus’ conception of a tripartite kosmos: intelligible, intellectual and visible. Julian refers to the Emesan cult specifically and to ‘the wise men of the Phoenicians’ (150b, Φοινίκων . . . οἱ λόγιοι) more generally as the source of at least part of his doctrine. He calls Emesa ‘a place from time immemorial sacred to Helios’ (150c, ἱερὸν ἐξ αἰῶνος Ἡλίου χώριον), citing Iamblichus ‘from whom I have taken this and all besides’ as his source for Emesan doctrine. Julian’s complex and abstract version of solar theology is not reflected in any profound sense in the Aethiopica, so far as I can see. However, the imagery of light and darkness, white and black, clings to solar cult, and thus pervades both novel and hymn, though in different ways. Without arguing for any direct relationship 14 PIR I.7 refers to attestations in Strab. 16.753; Dio 50.13.7; Jos. Ant. Jud. 19.338, 20.139. 15 4.16.6: νικῶσαν τὴν Τύρον ἐν Ἕλλησιν ἀναγορεύσαντος. 16 As argued in Morgan 2009. 17 The arguments are summarised in Morgan [1996] 2003: 417–21.

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heliodorus the hellene 267 between the two texts, one can nevertheless find significant convergences of thought and imagery, and occasionally of diction, which suggest that they were operating within the same cultural matrix. The crucial point, however, is that Emesan theology, refracted through Neo-Platonism, was an important element in Julian’s theorising of classical paganism. Conveniently, Julian’s citation of the philosopher Iamblichus demonstrates that the integration of Emesan theology into Hellenism was already taking place in the third century, a period to which some scholars date the composition of the Aethiopica, and that the cult had already been successfully purged of the undesirable elements which had been so prominent in the reign of Elagabalus. Heliodorus’ distinguishing religion was so profoundly assimilated into Hellenism that it could become a defining element of a classical paganism in a binary opposition to a new ‘other’ constituted by the threat posed by Christianity. Far from connoting marginality and alterity, Emesa and its cult were firmly at the centre of Hellenism.

The Aethiopica is written in Greek. Heliodorus is a master – an eccentric one, perhaps – of Greek prose style. His discourse is full of rhetorical tropes, the language as such broadly Atticist, but deployed with an exuberant virtuosity that we would associate more intuitively with Asianist schools. The Greek of the text presupposes a fluently Greekspeaking readership. We know little about the circulation of the novel in late antiquity: there is one small papyrus fragment from the sixth century, but no other evidence for its presence in Egypt.18 It enjoyed a secure afterlife in Byzantium, however, where its striking opening phrase was adopted as a cliché for daybreak by imitators of classical historians, notably Anna Comnena.19 So far as we can descry anything of the early Nachleben of the Aethiopica, no one seems to have considered it as anything other than a mainstream classical text, not quite part of the educational canon, but nonetheless acceptable reading for those who wished to polish and maintain their classical Greek. More important is the novel’s rampant intertextuality. Much of this is well-trodden ground, and can be summarily stated here, though much remains to be investigated and interpreted. The point is that Heliodorus touches pretty well all the intertextual bases with classical literature. The novel’s macro-structure mimics that of the Odyssey, beginning in mediis rebus, and filling in the earlier parts of the story 18 Gronewald 1979. 19 Alexiad 1.9.2, 8.5.4. The TLG turns up ten other occurrences of the phrase ἡμέρας ἄρτι διαγελώσης from Byzantine writers, not counting those who are quoting Heliodorus. For the reception of the Aethiopica in Byzantium, see Gärtner 1969.

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through embedded secondary narratives by characters. Calasiris’ narrative occupies much the same position in the structure of the whole as does that of Odysseus, concluding at almost exactly the half-way point of the text. Calasiris, moreover, is a narrator of Odyssean guile, who introduces his narration with a quotation from the beginning of Odysseus’ narration in Scheria (2.21.5, Ἰλιόθεν με φέρεις) and, lest we miss the point, is visited by a dream of Odysseus while staying in Zakynthos (5.22.1–3). Specific Odyssean episodes are also clearly evoked: a scene of necromancy is introduced, for example, by close verbal reference to the rites performed by Odysseus in Book 11, producing a correspondence to the epic Nekyia (6.14.3–4, evoking Od. 11.24 ff.). Charicleia’s ten-year sojourn at and escape from Delphi correspond to Odysseus’ detention by Calypso, and his release; in both cases shipwreck ensues. The imprisonment of the two lovers in the palace of the nymphomaniac wife of the Persian satrap suggests the Circe episode, but the fact that one of the main threats has problems with his eyesight also indicates that this sequence is playing the structural role of the Cyclops and his cave, with Arsace’s voracious sexual appetite substituting for Polyphemus’ taste for human flesh, and even running to an episode where Theagenes plies their captor with wine at a feast, leading to her erotic intoxication (7.27). The Cyclops is also figured in the two pirate figures Trachinus and Pelorus (whose names mean ‘Cruel’ and ‘Monster’); the latter’s name is also a direct allusion to Homer’s use of πέλωρ and πελώριος to describe the Cyclops.20 The whole of Charicleia’s story is shaped like an Odyssean nostos, and culminates with a recognition scene with her father. Theagenes, the hero, combines the two Homeric heroes. He is introduced with a comparison to Achilles, from whom he claims descent (2.35.1), and like whom he is a swift runner; he also bears a scar acquired while hunting boar, which is posited, though never used, as a means of recognition (5.5.2). Tragedy is equally a presence. Thomas Paulsen has traced how characters can be affiliated with tragic and epic generic markers as part of their characterisation.21 The confrontation between Calasiris’ two sons outside the walls of Memphis (7.4–7) is equated both to the combat between Achilles and Hector in the Iliad (they run three times around the circuit of the city wall) and to that of Oedipus’ sons Eteocles and Polynices at Thebes. The very ending of the novel combines motifs from Euripides’ two Iphigenia plays: first as the heroine faces human sacrifice at her father’s hands, and second where she is recognised at the ends of the earth, and threatens for a moment, 20 Hom. Od. 9.428; 9.187, 190. 21 Paulsen 1992.

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as priestess, to carry out the sacrifice of her beloved (whom she has repeatedly pretended is her brother). The action is underpinned by recurring metatheatrical imagery, comparing the action to the tragic stage, both as an act of literary self-positioning, and as self-reflexive commentary on the quality of the invention.22 The numerous laments of the two protagonists are repeatedly characterised explicitly as tragic utterances, through the use of verbs like ἐπιτραγῳδέω (1.3.2, 2.29.4, 7.6.4, 7.14.7). Aristophanic Old Comedy understandably has less of a place in this galaxy, but Menandrian New Comedy is represented in the story of Cnemon, himself the bearer of an archetypally New Comic name.23 The comic intrigue with the slave girl Thisbe plays with a Hippolytan characterisation for Cnemon, but in the end categorises him where his name has already positioned him, as a lower-level comic character. I like to toy with the idea that Heliodorus intends us to identify his Cnemon as the younger self of the grumpy old man of the Dyscolus. The picture of Athens thus constructed is admittedly not a favourable one, but it is constructed entirely from within the classical tradition. Classical prose genres are equally present in the mix. Historiography provides much of the furniture of the setting. We may even be encouraged to see in the just Ethiopian king Hydaspes the very Ethiopian king who saw through the spies sent by Cambyses in Herodotus.24 Certainly, the construction of Ethiopia presented in the novel is heavily reliant on classical traditions, from Herodotus onwards, and has little or nothing to do with the actual Meroitic civilisation, except as filtered to Heliodorus through earlier Greek writing.25 The Platonism of the novel has not been fully explored but the whole story has a pattern based on the myth of the soul in the Phaedrus. The soul’s fall into the material world and its return to the gods through the power of spiritual, non-carnal love is rewritten in Charicleia’s exile from Ethiopia in infancy and her return thither in the company of her preternaturally self-restrained beloved. The final ceremony that closes the novel is graced with Phaedran white horses and oxen pulling chaste chariots towards a summation too holy for the text to speak of openly. The scene of the protagonists’ inamoration (3.5.5) is shot through with the Platonic idea that love is a memory of the soul’s pre-natal existence. Meriel Jones has demonstrated that the antithesis 22 First noted by Walden 1894; more recently see Marino 1990; Montes Cala 1992. 23 Bowie 1995 explores the connotations. 24 Suggested by Elmer 2008. 25 Morgan 1982; for a more positivist view of Heliodorus’ knowledge of Meroitic Ethiopia, see Hägg [2000] 2004.

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of heavenly and pandemic love from the Symposium is fundamental to Heliodorus’ thought-world, and specifically and programmatically echoed in Calasiris’ distinction between the two kinds of Egyptian wisdom (3.16).26 Let us add that the scene in the Egyptian cave, where Charicleia’s identity is confused with that of Thisbe, obviously plays with the myth of the cave from the Republic, where appearance and reality are equally at issue. And lest we miss this, Heliodorus plays around with the word φαιδρός in the context.27 One could go on, but it should be abundantly clear that the novel is obsessively and deliberately self-positioned within the classical literary tradition. We can phrase this in two ways. First and positively, it is an assertion of the text’s Hellenism, an appropriation and revalidation of virtually the whole of the classical literary tradition, a last gesture of pride and defiance and education as the forces of darkness and fanaticism come knocking at the fourth-century door. Second and negatively, I can find nothing in this text which cannot be explained in terms precisely of the literary tradition. I phrase this observation carefully. Scholarship on the novels was long obsessed with the question of origins. A recurrent move in this game has been to look to other cultures, particularly Egypt, either for the germs of the genre as a whole, or for the ‘original’ of a particular novel.28 This is an ideologically attractive position from two perspectives. First, from a Eurocentric, ‘right-wing’ view, it preserved the classical purity of Hellenism by allowing ‘inferior’ literature to be unloaded on to ‘inferior’ cultures and races: the Capelle gambit. Alternatively, from a liberal, postcolonial position, and with a more positive prejudice about the literary quality of the novels, it allows the achievements of Hellenism to be reapportioned to non-European sources: the Black Athena move. It is no doubt true that in the Roman Empire there were continuing and subtle exchanges between local and central cultures. We have fragments of Egyptian narratives translated into Greek, and some of the papyrus fragments of what we call Greek novels appear to have a particularly local (i.e., Egyptian) centre of interest.29 The problem 26 Jones 2006. 27 Morgan 2012: 573–6. 28 Modern scholarship on the Greek novel begins with Rohde [1876] 1914, still immensely authoritative. Barns 1956 is often cited in connection with the supposed Egyptian origins of the novel, but is disappointingly thin when actually read. The apogee of this tendency came with Anderson 1984. 29 In the first category come the Dream of Nektanebos (P.d’Anastasy [Leiden] 67 = Pack²2476), and the Legend of Tefnut (P.Lit.Lond.274 = Pack²2618). In the second are the Sesonchosis Romance (P.Oxy.1826, 2466, 3319 = Stephens and Winkler 1995: 246–66); P.Mich.inv. 3378 (= Stephens and Winkler 1995: 422–9), which S.

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comes if we try to push the idea to specific cases, as for example Ian Rutherford has tried, unconvincingly, to do with Heliodorus.30 It is not difficult to find similarities, but that is not enough: we need to discriminate methodologically between significant and insignificant similarities, between resemblance and connection, and between remote connection and immediate connection; by which I mean to reserve the possibility of oriental influence at some earlier stage of the Greek cultural tradition being transmitted within the Greek tradition itself. We must also be alive to the possibility in the case of the Greek novels at least of influence running in the other direction, so that similarities might be explained by the migration of Greek novels into other narrative traditions. We know this happened in the case of the fragmentary romance of Metiochus and Parthenope, which has turned up in a Persian version; and I suspect it happened with several of the stories in the Arabian Nights.31 All that said, I repeat that I have not yet encountered any single piece of evidence or any argument that convinces me either that the Greek novel is a basically oriental form that has been brought over into Greek, or that any particular novelist had direct access to and input from non-Greek narrative traditions. This line of enquiry seems to me to be a dead end, and I want to conclude with yet another approach to Heliodorus and Hellenism. Is there a sense in which we can read this novel not as the product of an outsider contesting Hellenism, but as that of a fully Hellenised but not racially Greek person articulating an alternative, Hellenocentrifugal perspective from inside the Greek literary tradition, one that requires or enables his Greek readers to look at the world from a different vantage point? To begin with, we should question the notion of race in a question formulated like this. To be Greek was essentially to speak Greek, and to think like a Greek. Heliodorus the Arab, whom I do not believe to be the same person as our novelist (though there are those who do), is listed by Philostratus among the leading sophists of his time, with no issue about his race arising.32 We must not allow ourselves to be misled by, for instance, analogy with the position of an educated Indian under the British Raj, conscripted into the dominant culture but simultaneously irrevocably ‘othered’ within it. Heliodorus is certainly interested in what it means to be truly Greek. When Calasiris introduces the hero Theagenes into his narrative for the first time, it is as the leader of the sacred mission of the Aenianes: West 1971: 95–6 connects with Demotic Egyptian analogues; Tinouphis (P.Turner 8 = (Stephens and Winkler 1995: 400–8); Amenophis (P.Oxy.3011). 30 I. Rutherford 1997. 31 On Metiochus and Parthenope, Hägg and Utas 2003 is definitive. 32 Philostr. Vit. Soph. 2.32.625–7.

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οἱ μὲν Αἰνιᾶνες . . . Θετταλικῆς ἐστι μοίρας τὸ εὐγενέστατον καὶ ἀκριβῶς Ἑλληνικὸν ἀφ’ Ἕλληνος τοῦ Δευκαλίωνος . . . In the whole of the province of Thessaly, there are none of more noble ancestry than they. They are Hellenes in the truest sense of the word, for they trace their descent from Hellen, the son of Deucalion . . . (2.24.2) The discussion goes on to question Theagenes’ claim to be descended from Achilles, who is said by Homer to originate from Phthia, but the Aenianes claim to inhabit the real Phthia, other areas having usurped the name in order to make a false claim on Achilles. Details are further compounded: so Theagenes also traces his descent back to Aeacus, Achilles’ grandfather, by citing as an ancestor Menesthius, Spercheius’ son by Polydora, the daughter of Peleus – the same Menesthius who was one of the foremost of Achilles’ companions in the expedition against Troy and commanded the first brigade of the Myrmidons by virtue of his kinship with Achilles. (2.34.6) When Theagenes is shown in, we are given a portrait of him full of physiognomical details which are taken to confirm the veracity of his claim to be descended from Achilles. The novel’s hero is thus set up to be as Greek as it is possible to be, and a sort of canon by which other Hellenisms may be measured. Cnemon the Athenian, for example, is equally a Greek, but his city and the values which it is made to represent are presented as inferior. We might read Theagenes’ story as an assertion and reinforcement of his Greekness in alien places, just as Herodotus’ enterprise is really about taking his Greekness abroad in order to understand it better. So in the Persian court in occupied Egypt, the Persians are presented as archetypally decadent, voluptuous, luxurious, all of which negativities Theagenes surmounts. In an iconic scene he is presented to the sister of the Great King, the satrap’s wife Arsace by her eunuchs: They explained how he should behave on being presented to Arsace and how he should address her, adding that it was customary to abase oneself (προσκυνεῖν) on entering her presence. Theagenes said not a word, but when he entered and found her enthroned on high, resplendent in a gown of purple shot with gold, flaunting the conspicuous value of her jewellery and the

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heliodorus the hellene 273 majesty of her crown, her bodily charms accentuated by all the means at the disposal of cosmetic art, with her bodyguard flanking the throne and her noble counsellors sitting in state on either side of her, he was nothing daunted. . . . the hollow pomp and show of Persia (τὸ ἀλαζονικὸν τῆς Περσικῆς θέας) served merely to strengthen his indomitable spirit. He neither knelt nor abased himself, but with his head held high, he said, ‘Greetings to you, Arsace, lady of the blood royal.’ The court was outraged and muttered menaces against Theagenes for his failure to prostrate himself, calling him an insolent upstart, but Arsace said, ‘You must forgive him. He is a stranger and does not know our ways. He is every inch a Greek (τὸ ὅλον Ἕλληνι) and is afflicted with the scorn that all Greeks feel for us.’ (7.19.1–2) It is hard to imagine a more explicit assertion of Greek moral and cultural superiority. This behaviour marks all of Theagenes’ time in the palace: he resists Arsace’s attempts to seduce him; when forced to wait on her table he does so without servility but with more panache than the Persians bred to the task can manage; and when taken to her dungeons to be tortured into submission, he resists all physical pain, and prefers death to the loss of his sōphrosynē. Throughout this episode the Persians are very obviously constructed as ‘other’ along lines which we can trace back to Herodotus. The focalisation of the passage is significant. The ‘other’ is focalised through the Greek eyes of Theagenes, with morally loaded descriptions of Persian wealth and ostentation, but equally the Greek is focalised through the eyes of the ‘other’. However, this does not mean that the reader is forced to look at Greekness through genuinely alien eyes, or to adopt imaginatively the perspective of the ‘other’. Rather the focalisation by the ‘other’ conforms exactly to Greek expectations of what it should be, and reinforces the ‘otherness’ of the Persians and the Greekness of the Greek. The way that the Persians are handled is reasonably straightforward, but the presentation of the other main ethnicities in the novel, Egyptian and Ethiopian, is more elusive and complex. Calasiris, rightly, has occupied centre stage in scholarship. He is markedly Egyptian, and viewed as such by Greek characters in the novel, who turn to him for non-Greek sources of assistance, such as Egyptian magic: Charicles to overcome his daughter’s commitment to virginity, and Theagenes for help in winning Charicleia’s love. To non-Greeks, however, he appears as a Greek: we have seen the reception given to him by the Tyrians at Delphi; and even Cnemon at first sight takes him

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for a Greek by reason of his dress.33 His so-called Egyptian wisdom turns out to be nothing of the kind: he can discourse on the causes of the Nile flood (2.28.2–5, referring to what is recorded in sacred texts), about the evil eye and the species of plover that can cure jaundice (3.7–8, again sourced to sacred texts); but all he does is restate familiar Greek material, in the latter case with marked verbal similarity to Plutarch’s account of the same phenomena.34 And although he can comment ironically on the Greek fascination with all things Egyptian (2.27.3), and act up to Greek perceptions of the Egyptian magician, his heavily focalised descriptions of Greek ceremonial at Delphi do not offer an outsider’s view. In fact, they are greeted rapturously as wholly authentic by his narrowly Greek narratee Cnemon. At the heart of his deepest doctrine, as we have seen, lies an archetypal and familiar Platonic idea. Despite some cosmetic alterity, Calasiris is in essence a Greek in fancy dress, and the Odyssean aspect of his characterisation is more importantly equivocal than the alien. The Ethiopian finale of the novel and the Ethiopian origins of its heroine are central to the argument for the novel’s Hellenocentrifugality. Whitmarsh covers this in some detail, and draws attention to ‘what Spivak calls an abyssal specular alterity, the self othering the other indefinitely. A Greek text reads Ethiopians reading themselves as Greeks would: Ethiopia is not so much an absolute other as a space where mimicry and inversion traditionally ingrained in Greek representations of the other are played out to lurid effect.’35 Heliodorus’ representation of Ethiopia is certainly constructed entirely out of the kit of parts provided by the classical tradition; there is nothing authentic about it, except in so far as the tradition inherited by Heliodorus contained authentic elements. But despite the markers of cultural primitivism attached to it, I am not convinced that it represents an alterity, specular or otherwise. The presence in Ethiopia of Gymnosophists or naked sages is telling: although the Ethiopian Gymnosophists came to Heliodorus from Philostratus’ Life of Apollonius, the long tradition of encounters of Indian Gymnosophists with Alexander the Great is also operative in Heliodorus’ representation. Invariably they defeat the tyrant with their wisdom. This is an example of a recurrent cultural trope in Greek ethical anthropology, whereby allegedly ‘primitive’ peoples at 33 2.21.2: στολὴ καὶ ἐσθὴς ἡ ἄλλη πρὸς τὸ ἑλληνικώτερον βλέπουσα (‘his cloak and the rest of his clothes were of a Greekish appearance’). This description is clearly focalised through Cnemon, but the exact force of the comparative ἑλληνικώτερον is not clear. 34 Capelle 1953; Dickie 1991. 35 Whitmarsh 2011: 124.

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heliodorus the hellene 275 geographical extremities turn out to be more truly Greek – in the sense of articulating irrefutable Greek cultural values – than the corrupt or deviant Greek who confronts them. This is a variant of utopian thinking that projects ideals on to an imaginary realm beyond the Ocean. It is a device to give one’s own cultural values the authority of universality by de-culturing them, so that they can be re-imported with that added authority. Geographical sub-Saharan Ethiopia existed in real space, but the role of mythical Ethiopia, occupying a shifting and indeterminate location to the east and south, as a repository of unquestionably correct values runs throughout its representation in classical literature from Herodotus, arguably from Homer, onwards. Some markers of ‘otherness’, such as the bamboo architecture of the novel’s closing sequence (10.6.2), are no more than superficially exotic decor, while elements of negative primitiveness, such as the practice of human sacrifice or the barbaric Ethiopian wrestler, enable narrativity towards the resolution: if perfection always already exists, there can be no story of how it comes to be. Nowhere in the final book are we offered a critique of Hellenism through ‘other’ eyes, and the final gestures are of assimilation and congruence rather than opposition and alterity. As with the Persians, the focalisation confirms rather than challenges the norms of Greek culture, and arises entirely from within it. The flight from the centre, which we took to be a sign of an alternative cultural cartography, turns out to be a flight to the centre, or rather to a centre now more truly the centre than the centre itself, a true Greece beyond the south, to be governed in future by the superGreek Theagenes within a fully Hellenic framework of values and culture. Let us finally return to the end of the novel itself. Heliodorus identifies himself as a Phoenician from Emesa, and we have seen that there are good reasons to think of the fictional representation of Ethiopia as a displaced cipher for Emesa. We have also seen that Emesa and its solar religion had by the fourth century come to constitute a philosophical centre for classical paganism in opposition to Christianity. If there is any force in the argument I have advanced, then the cultural folding together at the end of the novel must include Emesa also, and affirm its place as the centre of true Greekness, defined not racially but culturally, linguistically and ethically, not as a centre of opposition to a narrow geographically and ethnically defined Hellenism. Heliodorus here calls himself a Phoenician: phoinix. Ewen Bowie has traced this word through the novel in all its senses: as Phoenician, phoenix sun-bird and palm tree.36 But is it perverse to see, in a novel 36 Bowie 1998.

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whose hero is so clearly configured as Achilles redivivus, an intertextual nod towards the figure of Phoenix in the Iliad, tutor and fatherfigure to Achilles, as Heliodorus is the creator and director of Achilles’ descendant. After all, it is Theagenes’ name, not Charicleia’s, that is punningly alluded to in the novel’s colophon and identified with Heliodorus himself: τῶν ἀφ’ Ἡλίου γένος Θεοδοσίου παῖς Ἡλιόδωρος . . . My argument has been that Heliodorus’ origins in Emesa are no impediment to his Hellenism, and indeed in a fourth-century context can be read as an assertion of it; that the novel itself is configured entirely within the classical tradition, and indeed presents itself as the final flowering of that tradition; and that the novel’s ideology is not one of contestation of Hellenism, or seeing it from non-Hellenic perspectives, but one of a reaffirmation of the truest Hellenism, represented by its super-Greek hero and validated by its relocation to the ‘natural’ values of a fictional Ethiopia, assimilated to Emesa.

14 LIVY READING POLYBIUS: ADAPTING GREEK NARRATIVE TO ROMAN HISTORY Dennis Pausch HISTORICAL NARRATIVE AND THE TASK OF THE READER For as long as I have studied ancient historiography, one aspect in particular has been especially fascinating to me: the continual concern of many authors about their readers and the potential effect their narratives have on them. Or, to be more precise: what am I to do, how am I to write, in order to prevent the reader from becoming bored and – horribile dictu – from putting down the scroll and quitting communication with the author altogether. Dealing with the reader in antiquity is, needless to say, always tricky, because our knowledge is far from sufficient to take an empirical approach towards these phenomena.1 One way out consists in the statements ancient historians make about this topic, since we can suppose with some confidence that they have been readers themselves too, at least from time to time. Some of them even try to take the perspective of their own readers, thus creating a kind of implied ­counterpart, as for instance Livy does in his tenth book: supersunt etiam nunc Samnitium bella, quae continua per quartum iam volumen annumque sextum et quadragesimum a M. Valerio A. Cornelio consulibus, qui primi Samnio arma intulerunt, agimus; et ne tot annorum clades utriusque gentis laboresque actos nunc referam, quibus nequiuerint tamen dura illa pectora vinci, . . . [14] tamen bello non abstinebat. adeo ne

I wish to thank the audience at the Leventis conference for a helpful discussion and especially Calum Maciver for doing his very best to rescue my English from as many mistakes as possible.   1 For the ancient scholia as an important source of information about the reactions of readers to poetic texts see Nünlist 2009, esp. 135–6, and his contribution in the present volume.

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infeliciter quidem defensae libertatis taedebat et vinci quam non temptare victoriam malebant. quinam sit ille, quem pigeat longinquitatis bellorum scribendo legendoque, quae gerentes non fatigaverunt? There are more Samnite wars still to come, though we have dealt with them continuously throughout four books, covering a period of forty-six years, from the consulship of Marcus Valerius and Aulus Cornelius, who were the first that made war on Samnium; and – not to go over now the disasters sustained in so many years on either side and the toils endured, by which nevertheless those sturdy hearts could not be daunted, . . . [14] yet would they not abstain from war; so far were they from wearying of a liberty which they had unsuccessfully defended, preferring rather to be conquered than not to try for victory. Who, pray, could grudge the time for writing or reading of these wars, when they could not exhaust the men who fought them?2 I shall come back later to this attempt at transforming the very act of reading into a heroic effort as perhaps something very Roman, but shall start by taking a step back to Polybius, another author who reflects quite a lot about his recipients. In fact, we should go even further, back to the fragmentarily preserved writers of the early Hellenistic period, since there began at that time the emergence of the reader as an important benchmark of historiographical writing and the idea that he should in some way actively engage with the text.3 But this would be another chapter in itself. Instead, I shall focus on how this ‘historiography 2.0’ was adopted by Roman writers. And I shall further confine myself to the two most obvious examples: Polybius on the one hand, who actually brought Hellenistic historiography to Rome in the flesh, so to speak, even if not completely by his own choice, and on the other hand Livy, although I am aware of the significant chronological difference between the two authors. Admittedly, this creates a problem in terms of influence, which is unsolvable in the end, as the histories of, for instance, Coelius Antipater or Claudius Quadrigarius are regrettably lost to us today. This may be part of the reason, too, why Polybius’ methodological impact on Roman historiography has never been studied in detail, though it must have been significant.4   2 Livy 10.31.10–15 (trans. Foster).   3 For a short discussion see Pausch 2011: 55–7 (with further references).   4 But see the useful remarks made by Davidson 2009.

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Another objection one may perhaps want to raise is that Polybius is not exactly known for his readability, even in antiquity, as Dionysius’ famous verdict, that no one was able to get to the end of his work, shows.5 Yet we have to take into account the usual polemic between two classical historians here.6 And then there is sometimes a certain discrepancy between intention and outcome, especially when it comes to readability (as this chapter, I hope, will fail to demonstrate). It is, nevertheless, possible to take Polybius as a starting point and as an example of how the task of the reader had been constructed in Hellenistic historiography. In a second stage, I shall try to sketch what Livy may have learnt from reading Polybius. In doing so, part of my assumption will be that Livy indeed studied Polybius in a methodological way – as one who took the writing of history at Rome to a new level – and did not content himself with copying his text as a source for any particular section of his work.7 The other part of my argument will be to attempt to understand the differences that emerge by comparing the solutions both writers preferred as adaptations of a Greek way of narrating history to the contemporary Roman context Livy is writing in, and by so doing I thus hope to contribute something to the main topic of this collection.

  5 See Dion. Hal. de comp. Verb. 4.30: τοιγάρτοι τοιαύτας συντάξεις κατέλιπον οἵας οὐδεὶς ὑπομένει μέχρι κορωνίδος διελθεῖν, Φύλαρχον λέγω καὶ Δοῦριν καὶ Πολύβιον καὶ Ψάωνα καὶ τὸν Καλλατιανὸν Δημήτριον Ἱερώνυμόν τε καὶ Ἀντίγονον καὶ Ἡρακλείδην καὶ Ἡγησιάνακτα καὶ ἄλλους μυρίους· ὧν ἁπάντων εἰ τὰ ὀνόματα βουλοίμην λέγειν, ‘ἐπιλείψει με’ ὁ τῆς ἡμέρας χρόνος.

Consequently they have left behind them compilations such as no one can bear to read to the final flourish of the pen: I refer to such men as Phylarchus, Duris, Polybius, Psaon, Demetrius of Callatis, Hieronymus, Antigonus, Heraclides, Hegesianax and countless others. The space of a whole day ‘will not be sufficient for me’ to recite the names of all of them, if I should wish to do so. (trans. Usher)  6 For the important part played by the polemic against predecessors in ancient ­historians’ construction of their own authority see Marincola 1997: 217–36.   7 To describe the relation between Livy and Polybius in terms of source criticism had been an important field of study in the last decades (see, e.g., Tränkle 1977; Burck 1992: 35–49; Briscoe 1993); more recently it has been argued that Livy is consciously drawing the attention of his readers to the variations between his account and those of his predecessors (see above all Levene 2010: 126–63; Polleichtner 2010).

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dennis pausch LIVY READING POLYBIUS REFLECTING ABOUT HIS READERS

Polybius’ concern for his reader8 becomes most obvious in the proem to Book 9, where he makes out different types of possible recipients of his work along with their actual interests: οὐκ ἀγνοῶ δὲ διότι συμβαίνει τὴν πραγματείαν ἡμῶν ἔχειν αὐστηρόν τι καὶ πρὸς ἓν γένος ἀκροατῶν οἰκειοῦσθαι καὶ κρίνεσθαι διὰ τὸ μονοειδὲς τῆς συντάξεως. οἱ μὲν γὰρ ἄλλοι συγγραφεῖς σχεδὸν ἅπαντες, εἰ δὲ μή γ’, οἱ πλείους, πᾶσι τοῖς τῆς ἱστορίας μέρεσι χρώμενοι πολλοὺς ἐφέλκονται πρὸς ἔντευξιν τῶν ὑπομνημάτων. τὸν μὲν γὰρ φιλήκοον ὁ γενεαλογικὸς τρόπος ἐπισπᾶται, τὸν δὲ πολυπράγμονα καὶ περιττὸν ὁ περὶ τὰς ἀποικίας καὶ κτίσεις καὶ συγγενείας, καθά που καὶ παρ’ Ἐφόρῳ λέγεται, τὸν δὲ πολιτικὸν ὁ περὶ τὰς πράξεις τῶν ἐθνῶν καὶ πόλεων καὶ δυναστῶν. ἐφ’ ὃν ἡμεῖς ψιλῶς κατηντηκότες καὶ περὶ τοῦτον πεποιημένοι τὴν ὅλην τάξιν, πρὸς ἓν μέν τι γένος, ὡς προεῖπον, οἰκείως ἡρμόσμεθα, τῷ δὲ πλείονι μέρει τῶν ἀκροατῶν ἀψυχαγώγητον παρεσκευάκαμεν τὴν ἀνάγνωσιν. I am not unaware that my work owing to the uniformity of its composition has a certain severity, and will suit the taste and gain the approval of only one class of reader. For nearly all other writers, or at least most of them, by dealing with every branch of history, attract many kinds of people to the perusal of their works. The genealogical side appeals to those who are fond of a story, and the account of colonies, the foundation of cities, and their ties of kindred, such as we find, for instance, in Ephorus, attracts the curious and lovers of recondite lore, while the student of politics is interested in the doings of nations, cities, and monarchs. As I have confined my attention strictly to these last matters and as my whole work treats of nothing else, it is, as I say, adapted only to one sort of reader, and its perusal will have no attractions for the larger number.9 Admittedly, this looks not only like a justification for his idea of πραγματικὴ ἱστορία together with its focus on the political and military   8 See, e.g., Sacks 1981, esp. 7–8: ‘Even within the historical narrative proper, it is clear that he has one eye turned toward his readers’; Marincola 2001: 133–4; Rood 2004b: 157–60; Näf 2010: 185–7.   9 Plb. 9.1.2–5 (trans. Paton, as in the following).

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livy reading polybius: adapting greek narrative 283 aspects of the contemporary history,10 but also like an attempt to anticipate the criticism offered by Dionysius some years later. But when we leave the matters of content aside and look for passages dealing with readability in more linguistic terms, what comes into one’s mind first of all is Polybius’ quarrels with his predecessors about how much stylistic embellishment a historical account should have. His views on this topic are not too consistent and always become especially harsh when it comes to Phylarchus or any other exponent of what has been labelled as tragic historiography.11 We find a good example, nevertheless, for the more liberal opinion put forward by him in several passages in the critical review of Zenon of Rhodes in Book 16 (I quote just the first sentence): ἐγὼ δὲ φημὶ μὲν δεῖν πρόνοιαν ποιεῖσθαι καὶ σπουδάζειν ὑπὲρ τοῦ δεόντως ἐξαγγέλλειν τὰς πράξεις – δῆλον γὰρ ὡς οὐ μικρά, μεγάλα δὲ συμβάλλεται τοῦτο πρὸς τὴν ἱστορίαν – οὐ μὴν ἡγεμονικώτατόν γε καὶ πρῶτον αὐτὸ παρὰ τοῖς μετρίοις ἀνδράσι τίθεσθαι· πολλοῦ γε δεῖν· ἄλλα γὰρ ἂν εἴη καλλίω μέρη τῆς ἱστορίας, ἐφ’ οἷς ἂν μᾶλλον σεμνυνθείη πολιτικὸς ἀνήρ. My own opinion is that we should indeed bestow care and concern on the proper manner of reporting events – for it is evident that this is no small thing but greatly contributes to the value of history – but we should not regard this as the first and leading object to be aimed at by sober-minded men.12 We cannot deal with Polybius’ general opinions in greater depth here – even the often-noted discrepancy between his outright condemnation of dramatic elements in theory and their frequent employment in practice would effectively rule out any possibility of reaching Livy before the end of this chapter.13 Instead, I shall focus on three elements of perhaps minor and rather mixed range: starting with something that looks like a very specific problem for Polybius at the start, the use of the first person in the historical narrative, I shall then proceed to summaries prefixed to the individual books and how they 10 See, e.g., Walbank 1993; Marincola 1997: 24–5, 2001: 121–2. 11 See esp. Plb. 2.56.1–13 (Phylarchus); Plb. 3.47.6–48.12 (previous historians on Hannibal’s crossing of the Alps); cf. further Meister 1975: 93–126; Marincola 2001: 135. 12 Plb. 16.17.9–11. 13 See, e.g., d’Huys 1987: 224–31; Walbank 1990: 260–3; Marincola 2003: 293–302, who is able to show that Polybius is not averse to raising emotions in general, but argues against the deployment of this device in the wrong places and at the cost of historical accuracy.

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can be employed to make the reader more attentive; and eventually I shall reach the arrangement of the historical events according to time and space and the question of how the reader should orientate himself within this macro-structure of the text. Talking about Oneself Narratology has proved to be one of the most useful tools for the study of ancient historiography within the last few decades. Yet certain problems remain, as some of the clear-cut distinctions developed to analyse fictional literature of our time turned out to be much more difficult to make in this particularly historiographical context. One of these remaining problems is the idea that the narrator becomes involved as a historical figure in the very story which he himself narrates, and thus draws attention to the identity of this historical person, the author and the narrator within the same story – entities who, for good reason, usually dwell in separate worlds.14 That all participants in this collision – or metalepsis, to use the more technical term – can feel somewhat uneasy is the impression one receives from a passage surviving among the fragments of Book 36, containing the period of the Third Punic War and thus the events not only witnessed by the historian, but also – to some extent – actively shaped by him: οὐ χρὴ δὲ θαυμάζειν ἐὰν ποτὲ μὲν τῷ κυρίῳ σημαίνωμεν αὑτοὺς ὀνόματι, ποτὲ δὲ ταῖς κοιναῖς ἐμφάσεσιν, οἷον οὕτως “ἐμοῦ δὲ ταῦτ’ εἰπόντος” καὶ πάλιν “ἡμῶν δὲ συγκαταθεμένων.” ἐπὶ πολὺ γὰρ ἐμπεπλεγμένων ἡμῶν εἰς τὰς μετὰ ταῦτα μελλούσας ἱστορεῖσθαι πράξεις, ἀναγκαῖόν ἐστι μεταλαμβάνειν τὰς περὶ αὑτῶν σημασίας, ἵνα μήτε τοὔνομα συνεχῶς προφερόμενοι προσκόπτωμεν ταυτολογοῦντες μήτε πάλιν “ἐμοῦ” καὶ ‘”δι’ ἐμέ” παρ’ ἕκαστον λέγοντες λάθωμεν εἰς φορτικὴν διάθεσιν ἐμπίπτοντες, ἀλλὰ συγχρώμενοι πᾶσι τούτοις καὶ μεταλαμβάνοντες ἀεὶ τὸ τῷ καιρῷ πρέπον ἐφ’ ὅσον οἷόν τε διαφεύγωμεν τὸ λίαν ἐπαχθὲς τῆς περὶ αὑτῶν λαλιᾶς, ἐπειδὴ φύσει μὲν ἀπρόσδεκτός ἐστιν ὁ τοιοῦτος λόγος, ἀναγκαῖος δ’ὑπάρχει πολλάκις, ὅταν μὴ δυνατὸν ἄλλως ᾖ δηλῶσαι τὸ προκείμενον. γέγονε δέ τι πρὸς τοῦτο τὸ μέρος ἡμῖν οἷον ἐκ ταὐτομάτου συνέργημα τὸ μηδένα μέχρι γε τῶν καθ’ ἡμᾶς καιρῶν ταὐτὸν ἡμῖν ὄνομα κεκληρονομηκέναι κυρίως, ὅσον γε καὶ ἡμᾶς εἰδέναι. It should cause no surprise if at times I use my proper name in speaking of myself, and elsewhere use general expressions such 14 For modern factual texts see above all Genette 1990; Cohn 1999: 109–31; for an outline of the problems attached to ancient historiography see De Jong 2004.

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livy reading polybius: adapting greek narrative 285 ‘after I had said this’ or again, ‘and when I agreed to this.’ For as I was personally much involved in the events I am now about to chronicle, I am compelled to change the phrases when alluding to myself, so that I may neither offend by the frequent repetition of my name, nor again by constantly saying ‘when I’ or ‘for me’ fall unintentionally into an ill-mannered habit of speech. What I wish is by using these modes of expression alternately and in their proper place to avoid as far as possible the offence that lies in speaking constantly about oneself, as such personal references are naturally unwelcome, but are often necessary when the matter cannot be stated clearly without them. Luckily I have been assisted in this matter by the fortuitous fact that no one as far as I know, up to the time in which I live at least, has received from his parents the same proper name as my own.15

Of course, you can say that this passage is about nothing more than Plutarch’s ‘How to praise oneself inoffensively’.16 I think, however, there is a more general point to it, even more general than the question of how a historian should present himself as part of the action, in the context of which the passage is usually compared to the locus classicus in Thucydides’ fourth book.17 Seen in a broader context, though, it is a remarkable example of Polybius’ concern not to alienate his readers by pushing himself to the fore, whereas this is necessary at the same time to offer them a convincing narrative by a trustworthy narrator. This is very important for Livy, too, although he is – at least as far as his text is preserved – a completely external narrator, and first-person narrative is thus restricted more or less to prefaces and methodological statements.18 Yet the question of how present and how perceptible a narrator should be, or – to put it the other way round – the extent to which the reliability of the historical account should rest on the authority of the 15 Plb. 36.12.1–5; cf. Marincola 1997: 189–92; Rood 2004b: 153–5. 16 Cf. Plb. 39.5.4–6, the narrator ‘Polybius’ mentioning several Greek cities confering the highest honours on the historical person ‘Polybius’; see further Rood 2004b for the possibility that this passage is a later insertion. 17 Thuc. 4.104.4–105.1; cf. Hornblower 1996: 333: ‘Was he to use the first person or the third? When speaking of himself as an agent in the present section he invariably uses the third person, thus conferring detachment on the narrative . . . When speaking of himself as an author he fluctuates’; Rood 2004a: 115–21; for a general discussion of this problem in ancient historiography see Marincola 1997: 182–205. 18 Cf. Jaeger 1997: 26: ‘The Ab Urbe Condita unites two extended narratives: a story of Rome’s history told by an omniscient narrator and an account of writing Rome’s history told from a first-person point of view that appears intermittently in asides, discussions of sources, and references to the present’; Kraus 1997: 72–3.

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person speaking, was vital to him as it was also to his contemporaries. This topic was intensely discussed at Rome in the first century bc, because there had been a remarkable shift in the general ‘memory culture’ especially with regard to the social background of those who played an active role in keeping the past present. Whereas historians in former times had been members of the aristocratic families and more often than not successful politicians and generals – people who, like Polybius, could use the first person in a historical narrative with some reason – Livy belongs to a new pattern of writers who based their authority not on their own ‘life and deeds’, but on their expertise as historians and on their skill as authors.19 In this context, the obtrusive narrator used by Polybius, making his presence felt at almost every passage in the Histories, would draw too much attention to the real author outside of the text. At the same time, it is not possible to make people believe in any historical account without telling them who the author is. This would not work even in our present era, where historians usually suppress any indications of the first person in their works (or at least that has been the practice for some time).20 Livy’s solution to this problem is to do what many authors writing non-contemporary history since Herodotus had done, namely to portray ‘himself within the narrative as organiser and sifter, if not solver, of the tradition’, to use John Marincola’s words.21 And though very careful not to be too obtrusive,22 Livy manages to remind the readers of the presence of a real person behind the text nevertheless. One of these instances is part of a hotly debated passage in Book 4 dealing in general with the spolia opima dedicated in the temple of Jupiter Feretrius, and in particular with the question of whether A. Cornelius Cossus had been consul or not when he won his spolia in 420 bc.23 This passage, given its significant political implications, has been taken several times as a test-case for Livy’s attitude towards the 19 For the use of one’s own persona as a way of authenticating historiography see Marincola 1997: 128–74. 20 For this tendency in the historiography of the twentieth century see esp. Barthes [1967] 1986. 21 See Marincola 1997: 262–3: ‘As opposed to the assured narrative of the contemporary historian, the non-contemporary historian, following in the tradition of Herodotus, portrays himself within the narrative as organiser and sifter, if not solver, of the tradition. He is far more likely to intrude into the narrative, and to place before his audience the difficulties of his own knowledge and character.’ 22 Cf. Feldherr 1998: 31–2: ‘The preface begins with a flurry of self-reference. But as the text proceeds, the author himself progressively retreats from it, rarely intruding his own persona into the narrative.’ 23 See Liv. 40.20.1–11.

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livy reading polybius: adapting greek narrative 287 princeps, and with the most diverse results.24 I shall not go into this in any detail, but shall instead focus only on the way Livy presents himself in this context: hoc ego cum Augustum Caesarem, templorum omnium conditorem aut restitutorem, ingressum aedem Feretri Iouis quam vetustate dilapsam refecit, se ipsum in thorace linteo scriptum legisse audissem, prope sacrilegium ratus sum Cosso spoliorum suorum Caesarem, ipsius templi auctorem, subtrahere testem. Having heard from the lips of Augustus Caesar, the founder or renewer of all the temples, that he had entered the shrine of Jupiter Feretrius, which he repaired when it had crumbled with age, and had himself read the inscription on the linen breastplate, I have thought it would be almost a sacrilege to rob Cossus of such a witness to his spoils as Caesar, the restorer of that very temple.25 When one looks at the Latin, it becomes even more obvious how pronounced the use of ego (already not unprovocative in itself) really is: it is not only placed nearly at the start, but very close to and definitely before the princeps himself. The self-assured appearance is further enhanced by the emphasis on an almost physical encounter (nicely stressed by B. O. Foster’s translation of audissem as ‘heard from his lips’) which in fact takes place between the author and one of the figures in his historical account, thus producing yet another form of metalepsis. The particular reason to highlight his own part here may be the fact that this second version contradicts the first one given by him earlier (Cossus not being consul, but only military tribune). But apart from this special case, it is very much the way in which Livy speaks about himself within his narrative.26 It is different from the manner he found in Polybius’ Histories in more ways than one, but these changes can be understood as a reaction to the modified situation in which this communication between historian and readers takes place in the first century bc, and thus as Livy’s way of adapting Greek narrative to Roman needs.

24 See, e.g., Miles 1995: 40–54; Rich 1996; Krafft 1998; Flower 2000; Sailor 2006. 25 Liv. 4.20.7 (trans. Foster). 26 For this observation see esp. Krafft 1998.

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dennis pausch Knowing the End

Coming now to another feature of Polybius’ work that must have been of interest to any later historian, we have to deal with two rather thorny questions: how much did ancient readers know about the historical events beforehand and how far was this relevant to their reading? Polybius – hardly surprisingly – has a clear opinion about both: as early as the general proem he stresses the unexpectedness of the events depicted by him,27 and he becomes more precise in the preface to Book 14 when he talks about readers who do not know the outcome even of the Second Punic War: ἴσως μὲν οὖν ἐπὶ πάσαις ταῖς ὀλυμπιάσιν αἱ προεκθέσεις τῶν πράξεων εἰς ἐπίστασιν ἄγουσι τοὺς ἐντυγχάνοντας καὶ διὰ τὸ πλῆθος καὶ διὰ τὸ μέγεθος τῶν γεγονότων, ὡς ἂν ὑπὸ μίαν σύνοψιν ἀγομένων τῶν ἐξ ὅλης τῆς οἰκουμένης ἔργων· οὐ μὴν τὰ κατὰ ταύτην τὴν ὀλυμπιάδα μάλιστα νομίζω συνεπιστήσειν τοὺς ἀναγινώσκοντας διὰ τὸ πρῶτον μὲν τοὺς κατὰ τὴν ᾿Ιταλίαν καὶ Λιβύην πολέμους ἐν τούτοις τοῖς χρόνοις εἰληφέναι τὴν συντέλειαν· ὑπὲρ ὧν τίς οὐκ ἂν ἱστορῆσαι βουληθείη ποία τις ἡ καταστροφὴ καὶ τί τὸ τέλος αὐτῶν ἐγένετο; φύσει γὰρ πάντες ἄνθρωποι, κἂν ὁλοσχερῶς δέχωνται τὰ κατὰ μέρος ἔργα καὶ λόγους, ὅμως ἑκάστων τὸ τέλος ἱμείρουσι μαθεῖν· Perhaps it is true that in all Olympiads the syllabus of events arrests the attention of the reader, owing to their number and importance, the actions of the whole world being brought under one point of view. But I think the events of this Olympiad [i.e., 27 Plb. 1.1.4–1.6: αὐτὸ γὰρ τὸ παράδοξον τῶν πράξεων, ὑπὲρ ὧν προῃρήμεθα γράφειν, ἱκανόν ἐστι προκαλέσασθαι καὶ παρορμῆσαι πάντα καὶ νέον καὶ πρεσβύτερον πρὸς τὴν ἔντευξιν τῆς πραγματείας. τίς γὰρ οὕτως ὑπάρχει φαῦλος ἢ ῥᾴθυμος ἀνθρώπων ὃς οὐκ ἂν βούλοιτο γνῶναι πῶς καὶ τίνι γένει πολιτείας ἐπικρατηθέντα σχεδὸν ἅπαντα τὰ κατὰ τὴν οἰκουμένην οὐχ ὅλοις πεντήκοντα καὶ τρισὶν ἔτεσιν ὑπὸ μίαν ἀρχὴν ἔπεσε τὴν Ῥωμαίων, ὃ πρότερον οὐχ εὑρίσκεται γεγονός, τίς δὲ πάλιν οὕτως ἐκπαθὴς πρός τι τῶν ἄλλων θεαμάτων ἢ μαθημάτων ὃς προυργιαίτερον ἄν τι ποιήσαιτο τῆσδε τῆς ἐμπειρίας; For the very element of unexpectedness in the events I have chosen as my theme will be sufficient to challenge and incite everyone, young and old alike, to peruse my systematic history. For who is so worthless or indolent as not to wish to know by what means and under what system of polity the Romans in less than fifty-three years have succeeded in subjecting nearly the whole inhabited world to their sole government – a thing unique in history? Or who again is there so passionately devoted to other spectacles or studies as to regard anything as of greater moment than the acquisition of this knowledge?

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livy reading polybius: adapting greek narrative 289 204–201 bc] will have a peculiar power of doing this. For in the first place it was during this Olympiad that the wars in Italy and Africa were brought to an end, wars the final outcome of which who will not be curious to learn? For everyone naturally, although he may accept our account of particular action and speeches in essence, still always longs to know the end.28

In one sense, this lack of knowledge might have been quite welcome to him, as it allows him to create suspense, in order to keep his audience in line. But at the same time, he employs a range of techniques to give his readers an orientation to what will happen in advance and thus to create a kind of suspense that has been labelled as paradoxical or anomalous in the twentieth century.29 The most obvious strategy is to give a preview of the future events in the text itself, and the natural place for this would be the start. This is, therefore, what Polybius does in the third chapter of the first book.30 But more remarkable is that he does not confine himself to this one preview at the start of the work. Instead he uses the book division introduced into historiography at some date during the Hellenistic period31 to give summaries at the outset of every single book (we have seen an example in the passage quoted above). In doing so, he draws a distinction between previews in the form of prologues (his method favoured in Books 1–6) and previews in the form of prefixed summaries (προεκθέσεις, to use his own word).32 But one of the most astonishing aspects of Polybius’ 28 Plb. 14.1a (trans. Paton, adapted). 29 For further references see Pausch 2011: 195–9. 30 Plb. 1.3.2–6. 31 See Mutschmann 1911, esp. 93–5; Irigoin 1997, esp. 129. 32 See Plb. 11.1a: ῎Ισως δέ τινες ἐπιζητοῦσι πῶς ἡμεῖς οὐ προγραφὰς ἐν ταύτῃ τῇ βίβλῳ, καθάπερ οἱ πρὸ ἡμῶν, ἀλλὰ καὶ προεκθέσεις καθ’ ἑκάστην ὀλυμπιάδα πεποιήκαμεν τῶν πράξεων. ἐγὼ δὲ κρίνω χρήσιμον μὲν εἶναι καὶ τὸ τῶν προγραφῶν γένος· καὶ γὰρ εἰς ἐπίστασιν ἄγει τοὺς ἀναγινώσκειν θέλοντας καὶ συνεκκαλεῖται καὶ παρορμᾷ πρὸς τὴν ἀνάγνωσιν τοὺς ἐντυγχάνοντας, πρὸς δὲ τούτοις πᾶν τὸ ζητούμενον ἑτοίμως ἔνεστιν εὑρεῖν διὰ τούτου· θεωρῶν δὲ διὰ πολλὰς αἰτίας καὶ τὰς τυχούσας ὀλιγωρούμενον καὶ φθειρόμενον τὸ τῶν προγραφῶν γένος, οὕτως καὶ διὰ ταῦτα πρὸς τοῦτο τὸ μέρος κατηνέχθην· τῆς γὰρ προεκθέσεως οὐ μόνον ἰσοδυναμούσης (πρὸσ) τὴν προγραφήν, ἀλλὰ καὶ πλεῖόν τι δυναμένης, ἅμα δὲ καὶ χώραν ἐχούσης ἀσφαλεστέραν διὰ τὸ συμπεπλέχθαι τῇ πραγματείᾳ, τούτῳ μᾶλλον ἐδοκιμάσαμεν χρῆσθαι τῷ μέρει παρ’ ὅλην τὴν σύνταξιν πλὴν ἓξ τῶν πρώτων βυβλίων· ἐν ἐκείνοις (δὲ) προγραφὰς ἐποιησάμεθα διὰ τὸ μὴ λίαν ἐναρμόζειν ἐν αὐτοῖς τὸ τῶν προεκθέσεων γένος. Some will perhaps inquire why in this work I do not, like former authors, write prologues but give a summary of the events in each Olympiad. I indeed regard a prologue as a useful kind of thing, since it fixes the attention of those who wish to read the work and stimulates and encourages readers in their

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Histories is that they ended with something like what we know as an index: the entire fortieth book, or, to be exact, scroll (regrettably lost to us), was occupied by a register or table of contents or whatever we might understand by his expression ἀριθμός.33 We shall find nothing of this kind when we now turn to Livy – at least, if we do not take the so-called periochae to be his own device (which is not impossible outright, but in the absence of any evidence must remain purely hypothetical).34 What we do find, however, are a number of previews given in a more narrative manner. There are prefaces in the strict sense, though not too many, namely to Books 1, 6, 21 and 31. But the reader gets informed about the upcoming events nevertheless, especially at the start of each new year.35 I shall say a bit more about the annalistic layout of ab urbe condita in the next section, so that we can focus here on what may be called the proleptic quality of this pattern. It is above all the recurring section ‘events in Rome at the turn of the year’36 that lends itself to this purpose: it can be further divided into subsections which include, first, the induction of the newly elected magistrates into their tasks for the early part of the year, offering a good opportunity to set the stage, so to speak, and to make the reader familiar with the subsequent theatres of war; and second, the expiation of the prodigies that occurred, offering an even better opportunity to give a strongly focalised preview from the perspective of contemporaries and thus to create a sort of suspense on the part of the reader. (footnote 32 continued) task, besides which by this means any matter that we are in search of can be easily found. But as I saw that for various fortuitous reasons prologues were now neglected and had degenerated in style, I was led to adopt the other alternative. For an introductory summary is not only of equal value to a prologue but even of somewhat greater, while at the same time it occupies a surer position, as it forms an integral part of the work. I, therefore, decided to employ this method throughout except in the first six books to which I wrote prologues, because in their case previous summaries are not very suitable. 33 See Plb. 39.8.8: τούτων δὴ πάντων ἡμῖν ἐπιτετελεσμένων λείπεται διασαφῆσαι τοὺς χρόνους τοὺς περιειλημμένους ὑπὸ τῆς ἱστορίας καὶ τὸ πλῆθος τῶν βύβλων καὶ ἀριθμὸν τῆς ὅλης πραγματείας. (‘Now that I have actually accomplished all this, nothing remains for me but to indicate the dates included in the history, to give a list of the number of books and an index of the whole work.’); cf. Rood 2004b: 152: ‘Polybius offers at the start of his work a “table of contents” for the work as a whole (3.2–6); . . . and then, after reiterating the utility of his work and the uniqueness of his theme, he announces that he is appending the periods embraced by the history, the number of books and what he calls the arithmos of the whole work, whatever that was . . . All that was missing was a bibliography.’ 34 See Pausch 2011: 113. 35 This is the case at least in Books 21–45, displaying the fully developed annalistic layout: Rich 2009: 126–32. 36 During this time, the turn of the year usually takes place on 15 March.

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livy reading polybius: adapting greek narrative 291 Our next sample passage is the end of the section ‘events in Rome at the turn of the year 208 bc’, which is a very notable year as both consuls, one of whom was M. Claudius Marcellus, the conqueror of Syracuse and one of the best-known figures of his time, will be dead before its end.37 This may be part of the reason, too, why the narrator becomes unusually explicit in this case: inter ipsos consules [sc. M. Claudius Marcellus et T. Quinctius Crispinus] permutatio provinciarum rapiente fato Marcellum ad Hannibalem facta est, ut ex quo primus post aduersae pugnae gloriam ceperat, in eius laudem postremus Romanorum imperatorum prosperis tum maxime bellicis rebus caderet. Between themselves the consuls [sc. M. Claudius Marcellus and T. Quinctius Crispinus] made an exchange of provinces, for Fate was sweeping Marcellus in the direction of Hannibal. The result was that he who, after the greatest reverses, had been the first to win from Hannibal the glory of a battle that was not a reverse, added to his opponent’s fame, being the last of the Romans commanders to fall, at the very moment of success in war.38 The same applies to the prodigies, which are not only very numerous but fail to be expiated in this year.39 Such bluntness, however, is rare. In most cases, what the reader receives are hints rather than announcements. Furthermore, these hints are usually embedded in the narrative and not marked as statements given ex officio by the narrator, thus producing the benefit described by Polybius, ‘to arrest the attention of the reader’, without at the same time interrupting the narrative. By this means, the involvement of the reader in the story is enhanced. On the other hand, it is much more difficult to find a particular historical event in the pages (let alone the original scrolls) of ab urbe condita than it must have been in Polybius’ Histories. Livy’s solution, then, favours a continuous and more literary way of reading, whereas Polybius – in accordance with his own statements – envisaged a more selective and utility-driven model. This may look at first sight like role reversal, given our usual views on Roman and Greek perceptions of literature, but it is in large part explicable by the 37 Liv. 27.26.7–27.14 (death of M. Claudius Marcellus), 27.33.6–7 (death of T. Quinctius Crispinus). 38 Liv. 26.29.9. 39 See Liv. 27.23.1–23.4; cf. Levene 1993: 63–4; for Livy’s approach to prodigies see furthermore J. P. Davies 2004, esp. 21–85; Engels 2007: 204–19.

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changes in the tastes and expectations of the reading audience over the previous decades. Getting Lost in Narration Measured by the number of lines spent on this topic, Polybius was especially proud of what could be called the macro-structure of his work, that is, the distribution of the historical events within his narrative. As other historians did before him, he adopted a two-fold model, starting with some more thematically structured books containing – among other things – the prehistory and his famous discussion on the Roman constitution, but strictly following a highly elaborated system from Book 7 onwards. This scheme takes the Olympiads as basic units and treats the individual events within them according to a fixed geographical pattern, beginning in Italy, moving to Spain and other countries in the west first, finally to Greece and other countries in the east.40 He justifies his decision with some effort, claiming that after Rome’s victory in the second war against Carthage the events of the whole oikoumenē are now inextricably interwoven and thus must be described in this particular manner.41 At the same time, he was very much aware of the problems caused by this method of presentation to the reader. One of his strategies to deal with the resulting inconvenience is to talk about it in advance.42 In 40 For an introduction see esp. Walbank 1985: 197–212, 298–312; Marincola 2001: 116–24; for the cultural and literary context of these decisions in hellenistic times see K. Clarke 1999: 114–28, 2008: 109–21. 41 See Plb. 1.3.3–6, esp. §§ 3–4: ἐν μὲν οὖν τοῖς πρὸ τούτων χρόνοις ὡσανεὶ σποράδας εἶναι συνέβαινε τὰς τῆς οἰκουμένης πράξεις (διὰ) τὸ καὶ (κατὰ) τὰς ἐπιβολάς, (ἔτι) δὲ (καὶ τὰς) συντελείας αὐτ(ῶν ὁμοίως δὲ) καὶ κατὰ το(ὺς τόπους διαφέρ)ειν ἕκαστα (τῶν πεπραγμ)ένων. ἀπὸ δὲ τούτων τῶν καιρῶν οἱονεὶ σωματοειδῆ συμβαίνει γίνεσθαι τὴν ἱστορίαν, συμπλέκεσθαί τε τὰς Ἰταλικὰς καὶ Λιβυκὰς πράξεις ταῖς τε κατὰ τὴν Ἀσίαν καὶ ταῖς Ἑλληνικαῖς καὶ πρὸς ἓν γίνεσθαι τέλος τὴν ἀναφορὰν ἁπάντων. Previously the doings of the world had been, so to say, dispersed, as they were held together by no unity of initiative, results, or locality; but ever since this date history has been an organic whole, and the affairs of Italy and Libya have been interlinked with those of Greece and Asia, all leading up to one end. Cf. further Plb. 4.28.1–6. 42 See esp. Plb. 15.24a: ὅτι ἐπεὶ πάσας καθ’ ἕκαστον ἔτος τὰς κατάλληλα πράξεις γενομένας κατὰ τὴν οἰκουμένην ἐξηγούμεθα, δῆλον ὡς ἀναγκαῖόν ἐστι τὸ τέλος ἐπ’ ἐνίων πρότερον ἐκφέρειν τῆς ἀρχῆς, ἐπειδὰν πρότερος ὁ τόπος ὑποπέσῃ κατὰ τὸν τῆς ὅλης ὑποθέσεως μερισμὸν καὶ κατὰ τὴν τῆς διηγήσεως ἔφοδον ὁ τὴν συντέλειαν τῆς πράξεως ἔχων τοῦ τὴν ἀρχὴν καὶ τὴν ἐπιβολὴν περιέχοντος.

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livy reading polybius: adapting greek narrative 293 doing this, he comes rather close to what was observed by Dionyisus of Halicarnassus, in criticising Thucydides for structuring his history in a very similar way: πλανώμεθα δή, καθάπερ εἰκός, καὶ δυσκόλως τοῖς δηλουμένοις παρακολουθοῦμεν, ταραττομένης ἐν τῷ διασπᾶσθαι τὰ πράγματα τῆς διανοίας καὶ τὰς ἡμιτελεῖς τῶν ἀκουσθέντων μνήμας οὐ ῥᾳδίως οὐδ’ ἀκριβῶς ἀναφερούσης. We lose our way, as is natural, and it is hard for us to follow the narrative, our mind being confused by the tearing asunder of the events, and being unable easily and exactly to remember the halffinished reports it has heard.43

Perhaps against the backdrop of such reproaches by earlier readers,44 Polybius in addition takes special care to explain the virtues of his strategy. The most detailed statement along these lines comes in a fragment from Book 38: οὐ γὰρ ἀγνοῶ διότι τινὲς ἐπιλήψονται τῆς πραγματείας, φάσκοντες ἀτελῆ καὶ διερριμμένην ἡμᾶς πεποιῆσθαι τὴν ἐξήγησιν τῶν πραγμάτων, ἐπιβαλλόμενοι λόγου χάριν διεξιέναι τὴν Καρχηδόνος πολιορκίαν, κἄπειτα μεταξὺ ταύτην ἀπολιπόντες καὶ μεσολαβήσαντες σφᾶς αὐτοὺς μεταβαίνομεν ἐπὶ τὰς Ἑλληνικὰς κἀντεῦθεν ἐπὶ τὰς Μακεδονικὰς ἢ Συριακὰς ἤ τινας ἑτέρας πράξεις· ζητεῖν δὲ τοὺς φιλομαθοῦντας τὸ συνεχὲς καὶ τὸ τέλος ἱμείρειν ἀκοῦσαι τῆς προθέσεως· καὶ γὰρ τὴν ψυχαγωγίαν καὶ τὴν ὠφέλειαν οὕτω μᾶλλον συνεκτρέχειν τοῖς προσέχουσιν. ἐμοὶ δ’ οὐχ οὕτως δοκεῖ, τὸ δ’ ἐναντίον. μάρτυρα δὲ τούτων ἐπικαλεσαίμην ἂν αὐτὴν τὴν φύσιν, ἥτις κατ’ οὐδ’ ὁποίαν τῶν αἰσθήσεων εὐδοκεῖ τοῖς αὐτοῖς As I give a narrative of the successive events that happened in each part of the world in each year, it is evident that in some cases the end must be told before the beginning, in those cases I mean where according to the general scheme of my work and the order imposed on my narrative the locality which was the scene of the final catastrophe occupies an earlier place than that which witnessed the initial stages.

Cf. Marincola 2001: 120–1: ‘The historian does not propose a solution to such a problem, which seems to have occurred fairly often, other than to inform his reader that he is aware of it. He clearly thought this method had more benefits than drawbacks.’ 43 Dion. Hal. de Thuc. 9.8; cf. Dion. Hal. Pomp. 3.13–14; for the cultural context of Dionysius and his critique of Thucydides see now Wiater 2011: 130–64. 44 See Walbank 1957–79: iii. 690: ‘those who criticize P.’s narrative as being incomplete and fragmented . . . will be followers of Ephorus, whose method is described in Diod. v. 1. 4 (FGH, 70 T 11)’

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ἐπιμένειν κατὰ τὸ συνεχές, ἀλλ’ ἀεὶ μεταβολῆς ἐστιν οἰκεία, τοῖς δ’ αὐτοῖς ἐγκυρεῖν ἐκ διαστήματος βούλεται καὶ διαφορᾶς. εἴη δ’ ἂν τὸ λεγόμενον ἐναργὲς πρῶτον μὲν ἐκ τῆς ἀκοῆς, ἥτις οὔτε κατὰ τὰς μελῳδίας οὔτε κατὰ τὰς λεκτικὰς ὑποκρίσεις εὐδοκεῖ συνεχῶς ταῖς αὐταῖς ἐπιμένειν στάσεσιν, ὁ δὲ μεταβολικὸς τρόπος καὶ καθόλου πᾶν τὸ διερριμμένον καὶ μεγίστας ἔχον ἀλλαγὰς καὶ πυκνοτάτας αὐτὴν κινεῖ. παραπλησίως καὶ τὴν γεῦσιν εὕροι τις ἂν οὐδὲ τοῖς πολυτελεστάτοις βρώμασιν ἐπιμένειν δυναμένην, ἀλλὰ σικχαίνουσαν καὶ χαίρουσαν ταῖς μεταβολαῖς καὶ προσηνεστέρως ἀποδεχομένην πολλάκις καὶ τὰ λιτὰ τῶν ἐδεσμάτων ἢ τὰ πολυτελῆ διὰ τὸν ξενισμόν. τὸ δ’ αὐτὸ καὶ περὶ τὴν ὅρασιν ἴδοι τις ἂν γινόμενον· ἥκιστα γὰρ δύναται πρὸς ἓν μένειν ἀτενίζουσα, κινεῖ δ’ αὐτὴν ἡ ποικιλία καὶ μεταβολὴ τῶν ὁρωμένων. μάλιστα δὲ περὶ τὴν ψυχὴν τοῦτό τις ἂν ἴδοι συμβαῖνον· αἱ γὰρ μεταλήψεις τῶν ἀτενισμῶν καὶ τῶν ἐπιστάσεων οἷον ἀναπαύσεις εἰσὶ τοῖς φιλοπόνοις τῶν ἀνδρῶν. διὸ καὶ τῶν ἀρχαίων συγγραφέων οἱ λογιώτατοι δοκοῦσί μοι προσαναπεπαῦσθαι τῷ τρόπῳ τούτῳ, τινὲς μὲν μυθικαῖς καὶ διηγηματικαῖς κεχρημένοι παρεκβάσεσι, τινὲς δὲ καὶ πραγματικαῖς, ὥστε μὴ μόνον ἐν αὐτοῖς τοῖς κατὰ τὴν Ἑλλάδα τόποις ποιεῖσθαι τὰς μεταβάσεις, ἀλλὰ καὶ τῶν ἐκτὸς περιλαμβάνειν. . . . ἡμεῖς δὲ πάντας διῃρημένοι τοὺς ἐπιφανεστάτους τόπους τῆς οἰκουμένης καὶ τὰς ἐν τούτοις πράξεις καὶ μίαν καὶ τὴν αὐτὴν ἔφοδον ἀεὶ ποιούμενοι κατὰ τὴν τάξιν τῆς διαλήψεως, ἔτι δὲ καθ’ ἕκαστον ἔτος ὡρισμένως ἐξηγούμενοι τὰς καταλλήλους πράξεις ἐνεστηκυίας, ἀπολείπομεν πρόδηλον τοῖς φιλομαθοῦσι τὴν ἐπαγωγὴν ἐπὶ τὸν συνεχῆ λόγον καὶ τὰς μεσολαβηθείσας ἀεὶ τῶν πράξεων, ὥστε μηδὲν ἀτελὲς μηδ’ ἐλλιπὲς γίνεσθαι τοῖς φιληκόοις τῶν προειρημένων. καὶ περὶ μὲν τούτων ἐπὶ τοσοῦτον. I am not unaware that some people will find fault with this work on the ground that my narrative of events is imperfect and disconnected. For example, after undertaking to give an account of the siege of Carthage I leave that in suspense and interrupting myself pass to the affairs of Greece, and next to those of Macedonia, Syria and other countries, while students desire continuous narrative and long to learn the issue of the matter I first set my hand to; for thus, they say, those who desire to follow me with attention are both more deeply interested in the story and derive greater benefit from it. My opinion is just the reverse of this . . . And this, I think, is why the most thoughtful of the ancient writers were in the habit of giving their readers a rest in the way I say, some of them employing digressions dealing with myth or story and others digressions on matters of fact; so that not only

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livy reading polybius: adapting greek narrative 295 do they shift the scene from one part of Greece to another, but include doings abroad.45 . . . But I myself, keeping distinct all the most important parts of the world and the events that took place in each, and adhering always to a uniform conception of how each matter should be treated, and again definitely relating under each year the contemporary events that then took place, leave obviously full liberty to students to carry back their minds to the continuous narrative and the several points at which I interrupted it, so that those who wish to learn may find none of the matters I have mentioned imperfect and deficient. This is all I have to say on the subject.46 Moving on to Livy, we shall have to face the fact once more that these two historians had not been the only ones in the ancient world up to this point. What is more, the development of the annalistic pattern is one of the most controversial aspects of Roman historiography, and the issue becomes even more difficult when we take into account Greek historians too. To use this pattern for a history ab urbe condita in the second half of the first century ad, however, will not have been an outright revolution in any case.47 Nevertheless, I maintain my assumption that Livy at the point of structuring his own history will have looked not least at Polybius’ text to see what could be adapted and what could perhaps be improved. And one decisive point is already obvious from the fact that now a Roman narrator presents the history from a Roman point of view: every old year ends with the elections held in Rome, every new one begins with the Roman magistrates taking their office and leaving the city to start their campaign in another part of the world, the reader following their journey there and back again (even if sometimes without them).48 By consequently taking Rome as the centre of events and 45 See Walbank 1957–79: iii. 692: ‘Here P. refers chiefly to Theopompus.’ 46 Plb. 38.5.1–6.7; cf. Walbank 1957–79: iii. 690: ‘P. defends his practice of switching from one theatre to another inside each olympiad year as providing variety, in contrast to Ephorus’ method of treating the events of each area throughout a longer period separately.’ 47 For an outline of this discussion see Pausch 2011: 47–53 (with further references). 48 See, e.g., Oakley 1997: 122; Rich 2009: 120–1. For the idea of the narrator accompanying the journeys of the historical persons ‘like a wanderer’ see App. hist. Rom. 12: ἀλλ’ ἐντυγχάνοντά με καὶ τὴν ἀρετὴν αὐτῶν ἐντελῆ καθ’ ἕκαστον ἔθνος ἰδεῖν ἐθέλοντα ἀπέφερεν ἡ γραφὴ πολλάκις ἀπὸ Καρχηδόνος ἐπὶ Ἴβηρας καὶ ἐξ Ἰβήρων ἐπὶ Σικελίαν ἢ Μακεδονίαν ἢ ἐπὶ πρεσβείας ἢ συμμαχίας ἐς ἄλλα ἔθνη γενομένας, εἶτ’ αὖθις ἐς Καρχηδόνα ἀνῆγεν ἢ Σικελίαν ὥσπερ ἀλώμενον καὶ πάλιν ἐκ τούτων ἀτελῶν ἔτι ὄντων μετέφερεν.

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thus giving a strongly focalised version of the history of the whole oikoumenē, Livy evidently tells us something about Rome’s place in the world in his view. At the same time the reader receives a very useful aid to orientation within the narrative, preventing him from getting lost and confused and even from interrupting his reading. But Livy does even more: he abandons the strict order Polybius had used and prefers a more flexible structure. This allows him – among other things – to leave one setting just before the action comes to the crucial point and create suspense by narrating some other event first. The capture of Saguntium, three times interrupted by a change of scene in Book 21, offers a good example of this technique.49 Livy’s decision thus aims at involving his readers in the story, whereas Polybius, according to his pragmatic concept of historiography, can allow them to pause and to ‘carry back their minds’ – a risk Livy obviously did not want to follow him in taking. CONCLUSION: GREEK VERSUS ROMAN NARRATIVE? Having compared two ancient historians who spent quite a lot of time reflecting upon their readers, we have seen common features as well as differences in dealing with some narrative problems which they both obviously shared. I hope that these observations may improve our understanding of Greek narrative, in accordance with the topic of this volume. They helped me, however, to make sense of some peculiarities of Livy’s manner of presenting his story, namely the restricted yet emphatic use of the first-person narrative, his preference for embedded and rather implicit previews instead of straightforward summaries, and the close relationship between the focalisation of events and the orientation of the reader in the annalistic layout. Trying to put these things together at the end, the main difference is that Livy’s reader is to a greater degree intended to become involved in the narrative, to the point where the very act of his reading is identified with the joys and sorrows of the historical figures, as we have seen in our first passage regarding Rome’s seemingly endless series of wars against the Samnites. To end up with the Roman writer standing for a more

(footnote 48 continued) Being interested in it, and desiring to compare the Roman prowess carefully with that of every other nation, my history has often led me from Carthage to Spain, from Spain to Sicily or to Macedonia, or to join some embassy to foreign countries, or some alliance formed with them; thence back to Carthage or Sicily, like a wanderer, and again elsewhere, while the work was still unfinished. (trans. White) 49 See Liv. 21.7.1–15.2; cf. Pausch 2011: 202–5.

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livy reading polybius: adapting greek narrative 297 literary way of reading history and the Greek one standing for a model driven by utility looks like role reversal indeed, and is perhaps a consequence of Polybius’ being too anomalous and idiosyncratic a figure after all. Yet a vivid, even emphatic interest in narrative is something highly characteristic of Rome and its culture in the first century bc – in a way being more Greek than the Greeks.

15 PAMELA AND PLATO: ANCIENT AND MODERN EPISTOLARY NARRATIVES A. D. Morrison

For those working on ancient texts in a modern world which puts a high value (in different ways) on the ‘relevance’ and ‘impact’ of scholarly research, it is beguiling and seductive to discern ancient analogues or equivalents even for such seemingly modern forms as the novel,1 as well as for genres whose antiquity is more transparent, such as the epic poem. A very understandable critical excitement has also been in evidence with regard to a special category of the novel, the novel in letters or epistolary novel (Briefroman), since there are several collections of Greek letters surviving from antiquity which tell a story of some kind, and which have accordingly sometimes been analysed as analogues of the modern epistolary novel. But there are some dangers in assuming too readily that these ancient collections of letters are straightforwardly equivalent to modern epistolary novels, not the least of which is failing to examine properly what is distinctive, and distinctively Greek, about these ancient letters and the narratives they tell. In this chapter, therefore, I examine some prominent examples of these ancient and modern epistolary narratives alongside one another to illustrate some of the differences as well as some of the similarities between them, in order to achieve a more systematic and thorough understanding of the connections (and disconnections) between ancient and modern examples of stories told in letters. I concentrate on what one might term epistolary narratives ‘proper’, that is, on narratives mostly or entirely told by means of a series of letters, rather than narratives containing embedded letters or narratives consisting of a letter relating a narrative. The narratives in which I am interested are ones in which a number of letters are the principal means used to tell a story.  1 On the relationship of the ancient and the modern novel see, e.g., Sandy and Harrison 2008.

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ancient and modern epistolary narratives 299 The narrative-in-letters has gone in and out of fashion, as we can see from the perspective of Anthony Trollope in one of the Barsetshire novels from the middle of the nineteenth century: There is a mode of novel-writing which used to be much in vogue, but which has now gone out of fashion. It is, nevertheless, one which is very expressive when in good hands, and which enables the author to tell his story, or some portion of his story, with more natural trust than any other, I mean that of familiar letters. (Dr Thorne, 1858)

Its appeal to earlier novelists such as Samuel Richardson was perhaps in part that it could be ‘very expressive’, as Trollope suggests it can be in good hands, and also that it provides a novelist with a means for creating ‘natural trust’: the letters of characters come with a strong impression that readers are able to access their private mental states, without the obvious questions about a narrator’s authority or sources of knowledge which the use of a technique like free indirect discourse prompts. There is a notable concern with ‘truth and nature’, for example, on the original title-page of Richardson’s Pamela,2 alongside a declaration that the story is in the form of ‘a series of familiar letters’. There is something of a resurgence of epistolary narrative at present: Lionel Shriver’s 2003 novel We Need to Talk About Kevin (made into a film in 2011) is in the form of letters,3 and there are several examples of novels taking the form of email exchanges (for example, Matt Beaumont’s e from 2000, and more recently Gut gegen Nordwind by Daniel Glattauer). Doubtless the growth in email and text messages (and other related types of electronic communication) since the late 1990s is part of the explanation for the popularity of the form. Such a wealth of modern examples makes selecting from them difficult, but I have chosen three which are particularly well known and influential, and date from relatively early in the history of the modern form, written in three different languages, and another more recent example in English. These four modern novels are Richardson’s Pamela, Goethe’s Die Leiden des jungen Werthers, Laclos’ Les Liaisons dangereuses and Dorothy L. Sayers’ The Documents in the Case.   2 The title-page describes the novel as (I reproduce the original spelling and typography): ‘A Narrative which has its Foundation in TRUTH and NATURE; and at the same time that it agreeably entertains, by a Variety of curious and affecting incidents, is intirely divested of all those Images, which, in too many Pieces calculated for Amusement only, tend to inflame the Minds they should instruct.’   3 Although the precise circumstances of the addressee are carefully obscured as part of the development of the plot.

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I will refer to these respectively as Pamela, Werther, Liaisons and Documents.4 With these I will compare the collections of letters attributed to Plato, Themistocles, Chion and Euripides (using these names, in italics, as the ‘titles’ of the respective collections).5 These ancient examples are those usually thought either the most influential on later ancient letter collections (e.g., Plato) and/or closest to modern epistolary narrative (e.g., Themistocles, Chion). But, as we shall see, we shall have to make reference to a wider range of ancient letter collections than simply these four. A brief description and survey of each text is appropriate, before we begin our detailed investigation into their similarities and differences. The earliest of our modern examples is Pamela (1740–1), which is also the longest of the narratives we are examining. It runs to some 200,000 words, and concerns the relationship between one Pamela Andrews, a servant-girl of fifteen (at the beginning of the novel), and her new master, Mr B., who is attracted to her. She resists his advances, including attempts at rape, but he imprisons her in a remote house in Lincolnshire, where she comes under further attack. Eventually she persuades him to make her his wife rather than his mistress, and they are married, and Pamela then overcomes the further problem of snobbery at her origins. The story is told mainly through the letters of Pamela to her parents,6 but the greater part of the novel is in the form of a journal kept by Pamela which she hopes one day to send to her parents. This is because Pamela is prevented from sending letters when imprisoned in Lincolnshire. Die Leiden des jungen Werthers (‘The Sorrows of Young Werther’, 1774) tells of the progress of Werther towards suicide: after arriving in a German village he falls in love with one Lotte, though she is engaged to Albert, to whom Werther also becomes close. But eventually he cannot stand to be near them and leaves. Later he hears of their marriage and later still returns to their village. But his love for Lotte, which cannot progress into a relationship, leads him to despair and he kills himself with Albert’s gun. The majority of the novel takes the form of Werther’s letters to his friend Wilhelm,7 but the closing section describing his despair and suicide is in the form of an editorial  4 Translations of Werther are by R. D. Boylan (1902), of Liaisons by Parmée (1995). All other translations are my own, except where noted.  5 I also abbreviate them as follows: Plato (Pl.), Themistocles (Th.), Chion (Ch.), Euripides (E.).   6 The collection also contains letters to Pamela from her parents (e.g., 2, 8, 13, 17). There are thirty-one letters in addition to Pamela’s journal, with several further embedded letters.   7 The novel also contains one letter each by Werther to Lotte and Albert. There are eighty-five letters in total, and three further letters in the editorial close.

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address to the reader. Werther is quite short: only about 40,000 words, which makes it the briefest of our four modern examples. Les Liaisons dangereuses (1782) is substantially longer, at about 140,000 words, and has a more complex web of correspondence (in this respect more like Clarissa than Pamela).8 Though there is some editorial material at the beginning and in the form of notes to the letters, the epistolary form is maintained throughout the main narrative, which tells of the competition between the former lovers Valmont and Merteuil, which leads the latter to challenge the former to seduce the naive Cécile Volanges, while Valmont sets himself the task of overcoming the devout Madame de Tourvel. The execution of these plans and their consequences (which include the deaths of Tourvel and Valmont, and the ruin of Merteuil) are told through letters by and to various of the protagonists. The latest of the modern examples is The Documents in the Case (from 1930), in which the build-up to and investigation of the murder of one George Harrison (not the as yet unborn Beatle but a middleaged mushroom enthusiast), apparently by means of poisonous mushrooms, is told mostly through a series of letters by and to a number of the main players in the narrative, collected together by George’s son, Paul, and sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions.9 This too is relatively short, at about 90,000 words. All of our ancient examples, however, are much shorter still: the longest is Plato at 17,000 words, of which about half is from the enormous Seventh Letter. The letters, all thirteen of which are from Plato, tell the story of Plato’s association with the court of Dionysius II of Syracuse, including the banishment of Plato’s friend Dion, Plato’s detention on Syracuse and his eventual release, the overthrow of Dionysius II and the death of Dion. The structure is notably more complex in terms of order, at least, than the modern examples.10 In Themistocles we find a collection of twenty-one letters, all written by Themistocles to a variety of addressees, which tell of the exile of Themistocles (the famous fifth-century Athenian statesman and   8 The correspondents include, but are not limited to, the protagonists, such as the Marquise de Merteuil, the Vicomte de Valmont, Cécile Volanges, Madame de Tourvel and the Chevalier Danceny. There are 175 letters in total.   9 There are forty-four letters (including covering letter and one telegram). The novel also contains three notes by Paul Harrison on the evidence gathered, the statement of John Munting (in three parts), two extracts from a newspaper and the statement by Paul Harrison (in two parts). 10 Letters 1–4 and 7–8 form a chronological sequence, but are interrupted by 5 and 6, which are earlier and later respectively in dramatic date; 9–13 are not in chronological sequence and 9 and 13 seem to have the earliest dramatic dates in the c­ ollection. See further A. D. Morrison 2013: 109–14.

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general) from Athens and his eventual arrival at the court of the Persian Great King.11 The structure is not straightforward: Penwill’s suggestion that the letters have a ‘diptych’ structure has won wide (though not universal) approval.12 On this model there are two sequences (1–12 and 13–21), each of which is chronologically arranged, though the two sequences overlap and give different versions of the same events. Penwill also suggests that the two sequences give us different versions of Themistocles: the scheming politician and the Athenian patriot. The structure of Chion is simpler: seventeen letters written by Chion, the majority to his father, ordered chronologically and telling the story of Chion’s philosophical development and his determination to end the tyranny of Clearchus at Heraclea by killing the tyrant. The final letter (to Plato) tells of Chion’s determination to kill the tyrant and his certainty that he too will die. The shortest epistolary narrative we are examining in this chapter (both in number of letters and in number of words) is Euripides, in which Euripides writes five letters to three different correspondents (arranged in chronological order), and between them the collection tells of the developing relationship between Euripides and Archelaus, king of Macedon (as well as giving us an insight into the friendship between Euripides and Sophocles): the final, fifth letter has Euripides writing from Macedon to Cephisophon in Athens reporting his safe arrival, whereas in the first he had been in Athens writing to Archelaus in Macedon.13 The cast of characters in these ancient collections is striking: Plato, Dionysius II, Themistocles, Pausanias, the Persian Great King, Xenophon, Clearchus, the tyrant of Heraclea, Euripides, Sophocles, Archelaus. These figures are historical individuals (or perhaps better: their literary namesakes in the ancient letter collections have historical counterparts). This is a marked difference from the modern examples, all of which concern fictional characters, none of whom is to be ranked alongside Plato, Themistocles or the king of Persia in prominence or importance (even those who are upper-middle-class or aristocratic). They are, rather, as the preface to Liaisons has it, ‘quelques particuliers’, that is, ‘some (private) individuals’, ‘ordinary people’. This is a first clue to some differences in the antecedents or connections of ancient and modern epistolary narratives: the former are closely connected to the biographical tradition (which itself, of course, made use of (real and fictitious) letters). But the modern examples owe more, 11 On the career of the historical Themistocles see Hdt. 7.143–4, 8.57–63, 75–80, 108–12; Thuc. 1.74, 93, 135–8; Plut. Vit. Them. 12 See Penwill 1978. 13 For a more detailed overview of the narrative structure of Euripides see Hanink 2010: 544–7.

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in their interest in the psychology and actions of ‘ordinary people’, to the genre of the novel (of which they are a special type), and in form to the publication of collections of letters apparently (at least) by private individuals, such as the Lettres portugaises of 1669 (even if their authenticity has been doubted more recently),14 and collections of model letters for a number of social and ethical situations, such as Richardson’s own Familiar Letters on Important Occasions (1741). It is true, of course, that some Greek epistolary collections did concern ‘ordinary people’, such as the letters of Alciphron and Aelian purporting to be by (amongst others) fishermen and farmers. But those collections are not focused on the telling of a story across the letters as a whole and so are different from the collections we are examining. Indeed the difference in their correspondents alongside the lack of a continuous story suggests we should categorise them as a very different kind of letter collection.15 The closest correspondents in our four ancient collections to the ‘ordinary people’ of our four modern examples are probably Chion and his father Matris, though these two do seem to have been historical individuals (according to a fragment of the historian Memnon of Heraclea preserved in Photius).16 But they are not the famous historical personages to whom most Greek fictional letters are attributed, of whom Plato, Themistocles and Euripides are good examples. Nevertheless, much of the interest in Chion centres on the significant, historical figures of Xenophon and especially Plato, of whose circle Chion becomes a member (letters 5, 10, 11, 17), and the influence philosophy has on Chion and his desire to put an end to the tyranny at Heraclea. Chion also gives us a participant’s perspective on a historical event, the assassination of the tyrant Clearchus, rather as Themistocles allows us Themistocles’ perspective(s) on his exile from Athens. Another aspect of our ancient examples which is not shared with their modern counterparts is a prominent apologetic element. This is clearest in Plato and Euripides of our four ancient texts, though it is also possible to discern an apologetic purpose in the presentation of Themistocles as a patriot in Themistocles 13–21 and an oblique attempt to control the reception of Plato (letters 5, 10, 17) and Xenophon (e.g., 14 Since F. C. Green’s discovery of the original privilège permitting publication of the Lettres portugaises as part of a collection of the works of Guilleragues (F. C. Green 1926) it has been widely (though not universally) believed that Guilleragues was the author. 15 Alciphron’s fourth book, the letters of courtesans, is closest to the ancient examples studied in this chapter, both in terms of the historicity of some of the protagonists and in the use of a degree of chronological ordering and narrative coherence. See P. A. Rosenmeyer 2001: 272–4. 16 See Düring 1951: 11–13.

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αὕτη δὲ ἡ ὄψις ἐπίδειξις ἦν τῆς Ξενοφῶντος ψυχῆς, ὅπως καὶ φρονεῖν καὶ λέγειν ἐδύνατο, ‘what I saw was a demonstration of Xenophon’s personality, his intelligence and eloquence’, Chion 3.4) in Chion. In Plato the apologetic element is clearest (and most notorious) in the famous Seventh Letter, which contains a species of epistolary autobiography: we hear of the origins of Plato’s involvement with Sicily and its tyrants, his early ambitions of providing Dionsyius II with a philosophical education, the disappointing failure of this enterprise (because of the failings of Plato’s inadequate tyrannical pupil).17 It is in part the seductive impression we are given of a glimpse into the philosopher’s private motivations and emotions which has made so many readers wish it were genuine.18 The apologetic element is also apparent in the third letter, where we get another version of how Plato came to be involved with Sicily (316c–317a), in a letter in which Plato explicitly defends himself against the accusations of others (both Dionysius II, who is the addressee, and Philistides, 315d–316b). In Euripides we find a response to some aspects of the biographical tradition about the poet, as Johanna Hanink has recently argued,19 for example with regard to his relationship with another of the great Athenian tragedians, Sophocles. This relationship was sometimes presented as a difficult one (cf. TrGF V.1 T 71b, 74c, 76): we find in Athenaeus a defamatory epigram which purports to be written by Sophocles about Euripides after they had shared a lover.20 But in the Euripides collection we find a different picture. The second letter is written to Sophocles himself, and the two playwrights are clearly supposed to be good friends: Euripides is writing to console Sophocles over the loss of some of his plays during a trip to Chios, which he is confident Sophocles will be able to remedy, having escaped death himself (E. 2.1). We get another perspective on this friendship in the final letter to Cephisophon, where we hear Euripides describe the relationship and its development: 17 See, e.g., 326b–327b (Plato’s first visit to Sicily, meeting of Dion), 327b–329b (hopes for Dionysius II, Plato’s decision to go to Sicily), 337e–350b (Plato’s second visit to Dionysius II, in which he is detained by Dionysius II, though eventually released). 18 The authenticity of Plato’s Epistles, especially the Seventh Letter, has long been a controversial topic: see Wohl 1998: 87 n. 1; Isnardi Parente and Ciani 2002: xi–xv (with further bibliography); and the survey in Huffmann 2005: 42–3 on the debate about the Seventh Letter in particular. 19 Hanink 2010. 20 See Athen. 604D (TrGF IV T 75, V.1 T 75) with Hanink 2010: 550–1. Hanink 2010: 544 also discusses how the friendship apparent in the letter to Cephisophon, the addressee of letter 5, itself responds to the story in the Euripidean Vita that Cephisophon was a slave and had had an affair with Euripides’ wife (Vit. Eur. IV.1).

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ancient and modern epistolary narratives 305 ὃν ἐγὼ ἐμίσησα μὲν οὐδέποτε, ἐθαύμασα δὲ ἀεί, ἔστερξα δ’ οὐχ ὁμοίως ἀεί, ἀλλὰ φιλοτιμότερον μέν τινα εἶναί ποτε δόξας ὑπεῖδον, βουληθέντα δὲ διαλύσασθαι τὰ νείκη προθυμότατα ὑπεδεξάμην. καὶ ἀλλήλους μέν, ἐξ ὅτου συνέβη, στέργομέν τε καὶ στέρξομεν . . . (E. 5.6) I have never hated him, but have always been in awe of him, though I haven’t always loved him as I do now. Thinking him excessively competitive, I have been suspicious of him, but when he wanted to end our quarrel I welcomed him most eagerly. Since that happened we have loved one another, and will continue to love one another . . . Though the apologetic character of the ancient collections is in one sense a difference from our modern examples (although Documents, at least, styles itself as an attempt by George Harrison’s son, Paul, to bring his killer to justice and rescue his father’s reputation as a mushroom expert), it also points us to a connection between the ancient and modern texts, namely a shared interest in the exposition and exploration of the correspondents’ motivations, emotions and relationships through their letters. One thinks, for example, of the scene (deeply ironic, when we reach it at the end of the collection) recalled by Plato at the beginning of the final letter of Plato (13): τοὺς Λοκρούς ποθ’ ἑστιῶν νεανίσκους, πόρρω κατακείμενος ἀπ’ ἐμοῦ, ἀνέστης παρ’ ἐμὲ καὶ φιλοφρονούμενος εἶπες εὖ τι ῥῆμα ἔχον, ὡς ἔμοιγε ἐδόκεις καὶ τῷ παρακατακειμένῳ – ἦν δ’ οὗτος τῶν καλῶν τις – ὃς τότε εἶπεν· “ἦ που πολλά, ὦ Διονύσιε, εἰς σοφίαν ὠφελῇ ὑπὸ Πλάτωνος·” σὺ δ’ εἶπες· “καὶ εἰς ἄλλα πολλά, ἐπεὶ καὶ ἀπ’ αὐτῆς τῆς μεταπέμψεως, ὅτι μετεπεμψάμην αὐτόν, δι’ αὐτὸ τοῦτο εὐθὺς ὠφελήθην.” τοῦτ’ οὖν διασωστέον, ὅπως ἂν αὐξάνηται ἀεὶ ἡμῶν ἡ ἀπ’ ἀλλήλων ὠφελία. On one occasion when you were giving a banquet to the young Locrians you got up and came over to me (you were reclining some distance away from me) and greeted me with a phrase that was both affectionate and well put, as it seemed to me and to the man reclining beside me (and this man was handsome), who said: ‘No doubt, Dionysius, you have benefited much in wisdom from Plato.’ And you said, ‘And in much else besides, for from the moment I sent for him, by the very fact that I had sent for him, I benefited.’ So let us preserve this feeling so that our benefits to one another always increase. (360a4–b6)

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Perhaps we should go so far as to say that the ancient collections are more interested in this kind of access to and examination of the private character of famous historical individuals than they are in the telling of a particular narrative (think again, perhaps, of the diptych structure of Themistocles). This serves further to confirm the suggestions of Penwill and Rosenmeyer that we should be more receptive than scholars (e.g., Sykutris) have typically been to the possibility of psychological interest in ancient (including epistolary) novels,21 an interest now more widely acknowledged for ancient literature in general.22 The epistolary collections, at least, are profoundly interested in character and its development, perhaps in part because of their apologetic aspect, responding to other parts of the biographical tradition about their famous purported authors. When we turn to the structure or arrangement of the different collections we can see some clear patterns. Our modern examples are largely chronological in arrangement: there is some variation from exact chronological sequence in Liaisons, where on occasion a letter is promoted out of order to form a pair with a letter it answers and/ or to allow the reader to read some letters in full knowledge of events which are still to transpire from the writer’s perspective. But the basic arrangement remains chronological. In Documents too there is some disruption to chronological ordering from the point of view of when some of the non-epistolary documents were written (e.g., the witnessstatements of some of the protagonists), but these are put in the right place in the chronological sequence from the point of view of the events they narrate. There is also a covering letter prefacing the collection, which was written after the bulk of the correspondence which follows. But our ancient examples show much more variety in structure (and it is worth bearing in mind that I have included here precisely those generally regarded as closest to the modern arrangements): Chion and Euripides are chronological in arrangement, but Themistocles is not chronologically arranged, though the two sequences 1–12 and 13–21 may form a kind of diptych, as we have seen. Plato is also complex: 1–4 and 7–8 form a chronological sequence, but are themselves interrupted by letters 5 and 6, while 9–13 are not in chronological sequence either in themselves or with respect to the rest of the collection. It seems to me methodologically problematic to abstract out of Plato a chronologically arranged Briefroman of the chronologically ordered letters, and I’ve suggested elsewhere that we need to take the order 21 See Sykutris 1931: 213–14; Penwill 1978: 92–3; P. A. Rosenmeyer 2001: 232. 22 See on this also Hodkinson 2007: 272.

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of the letters as transmitted seriously, in particular the often ignored 9–13,23 which allow us to reflect on the causes of the failure of Plato’s philosophical education of Dionysius II by rewinding back to the earliest stages of their relationship (as in the example from Plato 13 quoted above). Here I follow Mary Beard’s seminal piece on Cicero’s correspondence and the ways in which the MS arrangement of the letters have been obscured (or obliterated) by the re-orderings of later editors.24 Indeed, I think it is very important to realise the variety in arrangement to be found in the MSS across ancient letter collections both Latin and Greek: in a 2012 paper, Roy Gibson points out that ‘Greco-Roman letter collections (as transmitted in the MSS) were arranged predominantly by addressee or by theme (often without the preservation of chronology within addressee or thematic groupings), or arranged on the principle of artful variety and significant juxtaposition’.25 This lack of chronological order is obscured by the re-ordering of such letter collections by modern editors (a good example, again, is Cicero’s correspondence). The major exceptions to this lack of chronological arrangement are precisely those fictional letter collections such as Themistocles, Chion and Euripides which we have been looking at.26 But we should also note that there are several such fictional letter collections in Greek which do not show consistent chronological arrangement, not just Plato, but also Phalaris (which seems in fact to be radically disordered),27 Anacharsis (in which collection the letters are largely paraenetic)28 and so on, though it is probably true to say that chronological ordering does seem to be more common in fictional as opposed to non-fictional letter collections. Before we move onto the subject of differences between ancient and modern uses of the epistolary form itself, it is perhaps worth mentioning again the most obvious difference of all between our ancient and modern examples: length. The ancient examples are clearly much shorter than the modern ones, although there is considerable variety in the length of modern epistolary novels (compare Werther, for example, with Clarissa).29 This is, of course, not because ancient narratives cannot be of extended length (Greek literature begins, 23 See A. D. Morrison 2013; also Holzberg 1994: 8–13, 1996: 645–6. 24 Beard 2002. 25 Gibson 2012: 56. 26 Cf. Gibson 2012: 58 n. 9. 27 See P. A. Rosenmeyer 2001: 225. 28 On this collection in general see P. A. Rosenmeyer 2001: 209–17. 29 Clarissa weighs in at about a million words, and is widely reputed to be the longest single novel in English. It is some five times longer than Pamela, and more than twenty times the length of Werther.

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after all, with the monumental Iliad and Odyssey), nor is it because ancient prose narratives are always brief (think of the Cyropaedia or Heliodorus), but perhaps it does point us once more to the different affinities of our ancient and modern examples. The brevity of the ancient examples fits in well with the usual explanation of the origins of Greek fictional letters by famous men as rhetorical exercises,30 but perhaps it also points to a closer association with biographical and apologetic literature focused on the exploration and defence of character and motivations than with extended novelistic narrative. A characteristic related, perhaps, to the much greater brevity of the ancient examples is their greater tolerance for narrative gaps across a given collection as a whole.31 There are several examples of events not narrated, motivations not explained, consequences not explored, answers not provided: in Euripides, for example, there is much we do not learn, such as the names of the young men from Pella (E. 1.2), how they came to be imprisoned by Archelaus (E. 1.2) or why they were in fact released,32 while in Chion neither the killing of the tyrant Clearchus is narrated, nor the consequences of that killing either for Chion himself or for Heraclea, nor whether his characterisation of his future homicide as an act of heroic liberation (Ch. 17.2–3)33 is accurate, nor whether he attains his hope of a ‘good death’ (καλὸς θάνατος, Ch. 17.2). Such narrative omissions may be in part a result of the ways in which such collections came into being: if disparate, already existing letters were combined by editors into a narrative then perhaps it is to be expected that not all the events in a story and the reasons behind those events should be covered by the letters. The greater length of modern examples lends itself to a greater degree of explanation and exploration of what happened in the narrative (and why), a very nov30 See, e.g., P. A. Rosenmeyer 2001: 259–60. 31 I thank Ruth Scodel for pointing out to me the significance of the narrative gaps in the ancient collections. 32 At E. 3.1 Euripides describes their father as ‘praising and doing me honour, because I saved his sons’ (ἐμέ τε ὑμνῶν καὶ περιέπων, ὅτι σώσαιμι αὐτῷ τοὺς υἱέας), but since we do not hear from Archelaus himself it is not possible to determine Euripides’ precise role in their liberation, nor can we be sure that either the father or Euripides have accurate knowledge about this matter: the reference which Euripides makes to Archelaus’ praiseworthy action with regard to the men of Pella at E. 4.1 is also very general and unspecific (καὶ τὰ περὶ τοὺς Πελλαίους, ὦ βέλτιστε Ἀρχέλαε, καὶ πολλὰ ἄλλα πεπολίτευταί σοι καλῶς καὶ πρὸς ἐμὲ καὶ πρὸς ἑτέρους ἐπιεικεῖς τε καὶ σπουδῆς ἀξίους πολλούς, ‘Both with regard to the Pellaeans and in many other matters you have conducted things well both towards me and to many other honourable men deserving of your zeal’). 33 Note, for example, the rather hyperbolic μετὰ παιᾶνος γὰρ ἂν καὶ νικητηρίων ἀπολίποιμι τὸν βίον, εἰ καταλύσας τὴν τυραννίδα ἐξ ἀνθρώπων ἀπελεύσομαι (‘I shall leave life accompanied by a paean and the prizes of victory, if I depart from men having destroyed the tyranny’, Ch. 17.2).

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elistic impulse (at least in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries), but this drive to explain and inform the reader in turn has a peculiar consequence for some of the modern examples, which is not immediately clear from the summaries above. Several modern epistolary narratives in fact abandon the epistolary form for some portion of the narrative quite often: we see this in Pamela, in Werther and in Documents. We have the employment of a section of narrative in the editor’s voice in Pamela between the first straightforwardly epistolary section and the greater second part which takes the form of a journal by Pamela,34 the handing over to an editor who also narrates the final part of Werther (with a lament that such a narratorial intrusion is necessary: ‘It is a matter of extreme regret that we want original evidence of the last remarkable days of our friend; and we are, therefore, obliged to interrupt the progress of his correspondence, and to supply the deficiency by a connected narration’;35 Werther, Editor to the Reader) and the use of extensive witness-statements in Documents.36 Liaisons, on the other hand, is strikingly more consistent in its employment of the epistolary form. In this respect it (Liaisons) is more akin to the ancient collections, which contain only letters.37 But Liaisons also has the advantages of a complex network of correspondence (contrast Pamela or Werther, which are largely written in the guise of their eponymous 34 ‘Here it is necessary to observe, that the fair Pamela’s Tryals were not yet over; but the worst of all were to come, at a Time when she thought them all at an End, and that she was returning to her Father: for when her Master found her Virtue was not to be subdu’d, and he had in vain try’d to conquer his Passion for her, being a gentleman of Pleasure and Intrigue, he had ordered his Lincolnshire coachman to bring his Travelling Chariot from thence, not caring to trust his Body Coachman, who, with the rest of the Servants, so greatly loved and honour’d the fair Damsel; and having given him Instructions accordingly, and prohibited his other Servants, on Pretence of resenting Pamela’s Behaviour, from accompanying her any Part of the Way, he drove her five Miles on the Way to her Father’s; and then turning off, cross’d the Country, and carried her onward towards his Lincolnshire estate’ (Pamela, editorial narrative between letters 31 and 32). 35 ‘Wie sehr wünscht’ ich, daß uns von den letzten merkwürdigen Tagen unsers Freundes so viel eigenhändige Zeugnisse übrig geblieben wären, daß ich nicht nötig hätte, die Folge seiner hinterlaßnen Briefe durch Erzählung zu unterbrechen.’ 36 The documents numbered 45 (John Munting’s statement, second part, over 16 pp.) and 49 (Paul Harrison’s statement, 41 pp.) narrate the discovery of the body, the investigations into the crime, etc. 37 See P. A. Rosenmeyer 2001: 209, who notes the ‘lack of connective material’ and the absence of ‘a separate narrating voice’ across pseudonymous Greek letter collections in general (not just those we are examining here). The length of the Seventh Letter in Plato brings it furthest away from the epistolary form and nearer to a species of autobiography (cf. Hodkinson 2007: 274–5, who suggests something similar for Th. 20). Nevertheless, it is still formally a letter within a letter collection.

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characters) in which we are able to hear from a large number of different characters, allowing the reader to hear about events from a number of different perspectives, and accordingly to understand the different characters’ motivations.38 The lack of more than one epistolary perspective in the ancient examples we are examining is another reason for their greater degree of narrative gappiness: omissions and lack of knowledge on the part of one character are not compensated for by the knowledge of other characters. It is instructive here to bear in mind the ‘diptych’ structure of Themistocles, which might suggest itself as a parallel for the multiple perspectives of different correspondents in Liaisons (or Clarissa). Letters which concern the same narrative events, such as Th. 5 and 20 on Themistocles’ reception by Admetus, are part of the way in which different versions of the character of Themistocles are developed in each of the halves of the collection, to the extent that letters such as Th. 5 and 20 can contain contradictory accounts of what happened,39 which are not straightforwardly contradictory because of the different perspectives of different characters (since Themistocles is the writer of all the letters in Themistocles). The overlapping letters are focused principally not on filling in narrative gaps, but on developing different portrayals of the character of Themistocles.40 It may also be that we should see in the consistent use of the epistolary form in the ancient examples another indication of their origin as experiments in what particular historical individuals would have written in certain circumstances (that is to say, the form is motivated in part by a desire to investigate what, e.g., Themistocles or Plato might have thought or written at a particular moment, rather than being driven by a desire to tell a story in all its details). But I think we can also discern here another difference in the purpose or character of the ancient and modern collections. It is remarkable that in our 38 An example is the different views of the actions and intentions of Valmont with regard to Mme de Tourvel presented in letters 4 and 6 (Valmont to Merteuil, where he is explicit about his behaviour and proximity to Tourvel being designed to lead to seducing her), letters 8 and 11 (Tourvel to Mme de Volanges, where she thinks his actions innocent and a sign that his dissolute reputation is not fair) and letter 9 (Volanges to Tourvel, where the former warns of his wickedness). 39 E.g., in Th. 5 Admetus is absent for some eight or nine days after the arrival of Themistocles at his court, of which there is no mention in Th. 20, which strongly implies that the Athenians and Spartans arrive shortly after Themistocles and immediately appeal to Admetus to surrender Themistocles to them (Th. 20.8–10). The attitude, motivation and behaviour of Admetus are also very different in the two letters. Doenges 1981: 32–4, however, is of the opinion that the narratives of the two letters can be reconciled, though this is not a widespread view (see Penwill 1978: 85; P. A. Rosenmeyer 2001: 231–2). 40 See Penwill 1978: 100–3.

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modern examples the parts where the epistolary form is abandoned are precisely those of greatest narrative import: the death of Werther in Werther, the circumstances of the murder of Harrison and discovery of his body in Documents, the abduction and transfer of Pamela from Bedfordshire to Lincolnshire in Pamela. These non-epistolary sections, some of which are a large proportion of the text (see, e.g., the length of the witness-statements in Documents), carry a disproportionate amount of the narrative burden in these works, which points to the fact that the telling of the story is a more prominent purpose of modern than of ancient collections, and that for some authors, at least, the letter-form was not as ‘expressive’ a narrative tool as Anthony Trollope suggested it could be: it is telling perhaps that Trollope refers to the usefulness of familiar letters to the telling of the author’s ‘story, or some portion of his story’. Letters are a good way of providing readers with access to the perspective of a given character on a series of events, but if narrative completeness is a goal they become difficult to work with, precisely because of the restricted, partial view of events which they necessitate. Another important aspect of the structure of our texts is the explicitness of the editor as a distinct figure. All the modern examples are (more or less) presented as edited by an editor whose presence is clear to readers, whether in the form of an editorial preface (as in Pamela, Liaisons41 and Werther) or other forms of explicit editorial intervention (for example, the narrative by the editor in Pamela42 or Werther).43 Documents is slightly different, since the editor there is one of the characters who features in the letters and documents which follow (Paul Harrison), but his covering letter explains how the subsequent letters came to form a coherent narrative. There are also signs of another figure (an outer narrator) who completes the story, since there is a short, italicised description of the reaction of the Director of Public Prosecutions, Sir Gilbert Pugh, on receiving Paul Harrison’s dossier, and who provides the detail that a newspaper extract ­confirming the 41 ‘ne contient pourtant que le plus petit nombre des lettres qui composaient la totalité de la correspondance dont il est extrait. Chargé de la mettre en ordre par les personnes à qui elle était parvenue, et que je savais dans l’intention de la publier, je n’ai demandé, pour prix de mes soins, que la permission d’élaguer tout ce qui me paraîtrait inutile’ (‘it nevertheless represents a very small proportion of those included in the total correspondence from which they have been extracted. When I was commissioned to collate these letters by the persons into whose possession they had come and who, as I was aware, were intending to have them published, my only request in return for my effort was to be allowed to prune anything which I considered superfluous’; Liaisons, Editor’s Preface). 42 See n. 34. 43 See pp. 000–000.

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execution of the murderer was pinned to the dossier ‘at some subsequent date’. The editor (as we have seen) does much of the narrative work in Pamela and Werther and in a different way in Documents, since the statement of Paul Harrison is important in establishing how the narrative came to be assembled (since it includes letters incriminating the murderer). The editor is less obviously present in the bulk of Liaisons, although there are several editorial notes commenting on aspects of the action which are clearly in the voice of the editor. Across our modern examples the editor is characterised as having discovered or acquired the letters and to have arranged the material, in some cases suppressing details or changing names, as the following indicate: • ‘a very small proportion of those included in the total correspondence from which they have been extracted’ (Liaisons, Editor’s Preface);44 • ‘[The remainder of this letter, being of a very intimate nature, is not available]’ (Documents, editorial comment on 31, Munting to his fiancée); • ‘I must also inform the reader that I have deleted or changed the names of all concerned and should any name happen to belong to any living person or persons, this is sheer coincidence from which no conclusion can be drawn’45 (Liaisons, editorial note to Editor’s Preface). But this explicit pose of discovery, at least, is not present in the ancient examples, even if it is implied by the collection and arrangement of the letters (and certain editorial interventions such as prefacing the majority of the letters of Chion to his father Matris as ‘to the same’, which suggests the editor’s or reader’s perspective, not that of the correspondents).46 But we do not meet the editor as a separate speaking voice in the ancient examples. This is perhaps all the more surprising because there are ancient examples of texts posing as ‘discovered’ texts apparently found by an editor: Patricia Rosenmeyer has reminded me of the Trojan War narratives of Dictys and Dares, as well as the example of Antonius Diogenes.47 But those texts are not 44 See n. 41 for the French text. 45 ‘Je dois prévenir aussi que j’ai supprimé ou changé tous les noms des personnes dont il est question dans ces lettres et que si, dans le nombre de ceux que je leur ai substitués, il s’en trouvait qui appartiennent à quelqu’un, ce serait seulement une erreur de ma part, et dont il nefaudrait tirer aucune conséquence.’ 46 See P. A. Rosenmeyer 2001: 238. 47 On these texts (and their authentication strategies) see Hansen 2003; Merkle 1996.

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ancient and modern epistolary narratives 313 epistolary narratives (although they do employ letters as part of their authentication strategies) in the same sense as the examples we have been examining. Perhaps the absence of editorial presence from Greek fictional letters purporting to be by famous historical individuals, such as our four examples, is also connected to that earlier difference we discerned between our ancient and modern narratives: since the ancient letter collections are of famous, historical individuals, perhaps the problem of how the letters were acquired was less likely to arise, if the assumption was that such letters (were they authentic) would be published, whereas in the modern examples there is felt to be some need to explain the origins of the correspondence of private, otherwise unknown individuals. Perhaps the absence of the pose of the discovered text is in part an attempt at verisimilitude, if the pose of the discovered text is itself a marker of fictionality (as it seems to be for the modern examples). We have seen, I hope, some striking differences between ancient Greek and modern European epistolary narratives, not least in scope, the use of means of conveying the story other than letters, the presence of an explicit editor and the tolerance for narrative gaps. But there are also some clear affinities, such as a deep interest in the psychology of characters and their motivation, a profound interest in the power but also the dangers of communication in letters, and the nature of epistolarity itself. These are important family resemblances between the ancient and the modern examples, and they justify using the modern examples as tools to think with about their ancient counterparts. The terms ‘epistolary novel’ and Briefroman are somewhat misleading, I believe, when applied to the ancient narratives we have been examining, but chiefly because they overlook their restricted length and their focus on the lives and characters of famous historical individuals (as opposed to a focus on telling a story in detail, which is much more prominent in the modern examples), rather than because the ancient texts are doing something completely different from the modern ones. But I suggest we need to look beyond the modern epistolary novel to understand in a fuller sense the ancient narratives we have been examining, in particular to ancient biography and apologetic literature such as the Socratic works of Plato and Xenophon, but also to other ancient letter collections and their various principles of order and arrangement.

16 THE ANONYMOUS TRAVELLER IN EUROPEAN LITERATURE: A GREEK MEME? Irene J. F. de Jong INTRODUCTION: DEFINITION Italo Calvino’s novel If on a Winter’s Night a Traveller of 1979 famously revolves around a reader in search of a book that he has started to read but that turns out to be incomplete. The book’s opening sentences tell of a traveller arriving on a winter’s night at the small station of a provincial town. In the final chapter the reader ends up in a library where one of the other readers warns him that finding the book will be very difficult since ‘once upon a time they all began like that, all novels. There was somebody who went along a lonely street and saw something that attracted his attention, something that seemed to conceal a mystery, or a premonition; then he asked for explanations and they told him a long story’; ‘the traveller always appeared only in the first pages and then was never mentioned again – he had fulfilled his function, the novel wasn’t his story’. In this chapter I shall take a closer look at this device of ‘the anonymous traveller’ in European literature. Calvino suggests that it is an old device (‘once upon a time they all began like that’), and my first question is ‘how old?’ Thus, I shall go back in time step by step and trace its origins. My quest will, not surprisingly in view of the topic of this volume, lead me to ancient Greece. The second question which I shall discuss is whether we can indeed draw up such a European history of a narrative device and speak of its Greek origins, or whether, perhaps, we should rather consider the anonymous traveller a narrative universal. In short, I shall use the dossier of this device, fascinating in itself, as one possible test-case in defining Greek narrative.

I wish to thank audiences in Edinburgh, Amsterdam and Leiden and the editors for their useful comments and suggestions.

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the anonymous traveller in european literature 315 Before embarking on my voyage through time I shall define more clearly what I mean by the anonymous traveller device. A simple and clear example is George Eliot, Scenes of Clerical Life, chapter 2 (1858): More than a quarter of a century has slipped by since then, and in the interval Milby has advanced at as rapid a pace as other market-towns in her Majesty’s dominions. By this time it has a handsome railway station, where the drowsy London traveller may look out by the brilliant gas-light and see perfectly sober papas and husbands alighting with their leather bags after transacting their day’s business at the county town.

The narrator introduces an anonymous London traveller and borrows his eyes to enliven the description of a little provincial town. Descriptions of scenery will turn out to be the natural habitat of the anonymous traveller,1 though not the only one. The device of the anonymous traveller is a subtype of the much larger category of the anonymous focaliser. A narrator may at all times choose to present his story not via his own eyes or those of one of his named characters, but via those of an anonymous onlooker, as for example in Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘Manuscript found in a bottle’ (1833): I have seen the captain face to face, and in his own cabin – but, as I expected, he paid me no attention. Although in his appearance there is, to a casual observer, nothing which might bespeak him more or less than man – still a feeling of irrepressible reverence and awe mingled with the sensation of wonder with which I regarded him. Often anonymous focalisation is only hypothetical, that is to say, it presents ‘what might be or have been seen or perceived – if only there were someone who could have adopted the requisite perspective on the situations and events at issue’. Hypothetical focalisation has been studied by the narratologist David Herman,2 who gives as an example A. S. Byatt, Possession, chapter 15 (1990):

  1 Cf. Friedemann 1910: 188 (‘der Erzähler [braucht] die Fiktion eines Reisenden von heute, um die Landschaftsbilder vor ihm emporsteigen zu lassen, ehe er erzählt’); Hamon [1981] 1993: 175–6.   2 Herman 1994, quotation from 231.

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An observer might have speculated for some time as to whether they [the two protagonists] were travelling together or separately, for their eyes only rarely met, and when they did, remained guarded and expressionless. Many of my anonymous travellers will likewise be of a hypothetical status, but the two categories do not completely overlap. Thus Herman also includes second-person forms, such as William Thackeray, Vanity Fair, chapter 48 (1848): her dress [Becky Sharp’s], though if you were to see it now, any present lady of Vanity Fair would pronounce it to be the most foolish and preposterous attire ever worn, was as handsome in her eyes and those of the public, some five-and-twenty years since, as the most brilliant costume of the most famous beauty of the present season. Such second-person forms are well known from ancient texts too, for example, Homer, Il. 17.366–8: Ὣς οἱ μὲν μάρναντο δέμας πυρός, οὐδέ κε φαίης οὔτέ ποτ’ ἠέλιον σῶν ἔμμεναι οὔτε σελήνην· ἠέρι γὰρ κατέχοντο μάχης ἐπί θ’ ὅσσον ἄριστοι . . . Thus they fought on like fire, and you would not have thought that sun or moon were still secure in their place; for they were enclosed in mist in the battle, all the bravest . . . 3 Compare Sallust, Bellum Catilinae 61.1: Sed confecto proelio tum vero cerneres quanta audacia quantaque animi vis fuisset in exercitu Catilinae. But when the battle had finished then you might truly have noted how much daring and mental power there had been in Catiline’s army.4 I would prefer, however, to connect this hypothetical ‘you’ with the narratee. For this analysis, which I have already proposed in   3 Texts are mostly the current OCT ones; translations are my own.   4 For discussions in classical literature, see, for example, (on Homeric epic) De Jong [1987a] 2004: 54–7; S. D. Richardson 1990: 174–8; (on Pausanias) Akujärvi 2005: 160–2; (on Latin historiography) Gilmartin 1975.

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Narrators and Focalizers, I can enlist the support of Longinus, On the Sublime 26, who notes that ‘Change of person [from third to second person] gives an equally vivid effect, and often makes the hearer feel as if he were moving about in the thick of danger.’ Of course, the two devices (‘an observer might have seen’ or ‘you might have seen’) are closely related. Thus often ‘you’ means ‘one’ and is translated accordingly, expressions have both a ‘someone’ and a ‘you’ variant (ἔγνω τις ἄν at Xen. Cyr. 3.3.70 next to ἐπέγνως . . . ἄν at 8.1.33), and the devices are combined in one passage (e.g., πλὴν εἰ μή τις . . . ἀναφέροι . . . οὐκ ἂν οὐδὲ τοῦτο ἴδοις ῥᾳδίως at Pausanias, Periegesis 2.11.6). Also, grammarians such as Kühner and Gerth discuss the two devices under the same heading.5 Above all, in their effect the devices are closely comparable: both aim at drawing the narratee into the story and increasing his engagement. From a narratological point of view it is, however, more accurate to distinguish them: in ‘you might have seen’ the narratee himself becomes a witness of events, while in ‘someone might have seen’ the narratee gets a stand-in in the text who looks for him. All in all, the relationships between the various devices and categories just discussed can be visually represented as in Figure 16.1. The anonymous traveller is a subtype of the anonymous focaliser; the anonymous focaliser can take the form of a hypothetical focaliser, but a hypothetical focaliser may also be a ‘you’ and then is to be identified with the narratee. Anonymous focaliser Anonymous traveller



Hypothetical focaliser



Narratee – ‘you’

Figure 16.1  Devices and categories

THE ANONYMOUS TRAVELLER IN EUROPEAN LITERATURE Having cleared the question of definition and demarcation, I shall now discuss a number of examples, each of which will take us further  5 Kühner and Gerth [1898] 1976: 213–14. Gilmartin 1975 and Akujärvi 2005: 145–66 also take the second- and third-person devices together.

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back in time until, in true Greek spirit, we reach the prōtos heuretēs of the device. Over the past years I have assembled some forty examples and I am sure there are many more. Of course I can only present a selection, which must suffice, however, to show its long history and many forms and functions. My first example, from Marcel Proust, Swann’s Way (1913), immediately shows an interesting variant: So will a traveller, who has come down, on a day of glorious weather, to the Mediterranean shore, and is doubtful whether they still exist, those lands which he has left, let his eyes be dazzled, rather than cast a backward glance, by the radiance streaming towards him from the luminous and unfading azure at his feet. Proust uses the anonymous traveller device in the form of a comparison, which must make clear the joy of Swann who unexpectedly meets his beloved Odette.6 A brilliant exploitation of the anonymous traveller is made by Flaubert at the opening of the second book of Madame Bovary, II.1 (1856): Yonville-l’Abbaye (so called from an old Capuchin abbey of which not even the ruins remain) is a market-town twenty-four miles from Rouen . . . One leaves the highroad at La Boissiere and keeps straight on to the top of the Leux hill, whence the valley is seen. Before one, on the verge of the horizon, lie the oaks of the forest of Argueil, . . . At the foot of the hill beyond the bridge begins a roadway, planted with young aspens, that leads in a straight line to the first houses in the place. These, fenced in by hedges, are in the middle of courtyards full of straggling buildings, wine-presses, cart-sheds, and distilleries scattered under thick trees, with ladders, poles, or scythes hung on to the branches . . . But the courtyards grow narrower, the houses closer together, and the fences disappear; a bundle of ferns swings under a window from the end of a broomstick; there is a blacksmith’s forge and then a wheelwright’s, with two or three new carts outside that partly block up the way. Then across an open space appears a white house beyond a grass mound ornamented by a Cupid, his finger on his lips; two brass vases are at each end of a flight of steps; scutcheons blaze upon the door. It is the notary’s   6 Proust is very fond of the anonymous traveller, who often figures in a comparison.

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the anonymous traveller in european literature 319 house, and the finest in the place. The church is on the other side of the street, twenty paces farther down, at the entrance of the square. The little cemetery that surrounds it, closed in by a wall breast-high, is so full of graves that the old stones, level with the ground, form a continuous pavement, on which the grass of itself has marked out regular green squares . . . The market, that is to say, a tiled roof supported by some twenty posts, occupies of itself about half the public square of Yonville. The town hall, constructed ‘from the designs of a Paris architect’, is a sort of Greek temple that forms the corner next to the chemist’s shop . . . But that which most attracts the eye is, opposite the Lion d’Or inn, the chemist’s shop of Monsieur Homais . . . Beyond this there is nothing to see at Yonville. Yonville is the (fictional) place where Emma Bovary is moving to and where she is to spend the rest of her (unhappy) life. We hear that she and her husband are on their way in a stage-coach, but instead of making her have a first look at the town Flaubert makes them halt and spend the night at a nearby inn and describes the place through the eyes of an anonymous tourist. One by one the ‘highlights’ of the town are described in a mock tourist-guide format, which actually only points up how little the small provincial town has to offer. The concluding sentence, ‘Beyond this there is nothing to see at Yonville’, thus is both ironic and ominous. The provincialism and dullness of the place will be the undoing of the novel’s heroine. One of the most elaborate examples is Stendhal’s The Red and the Black, 1, 1 (1830): The small town of Verrières may be regarded as one of the most attractive in the Franche-Comté. [A description of its natural surroundings follows.] No sooner has one entered the town than one is startled by the din of a noisy machine of terrifying aspect. [Description of the machine] This work, so rough to the outward eye, is one of the industries that most astonish the traveller who ventures for the first time among the mountains that divide France from Switzerland. If, on entering Verrières, the traveller inquires to whom belongs that fine nail factory which deafens everybody who passes up the main street, he will be told in a drawling accent: ‘Eh! It belongs to the Mayor.’ Provided the traveller halts for a few moments in this main street of Verrières, which runs from the bank of the Doubs nearly to the summit of the hill, it is a hundred to one that he will see a tall man appear, with a busy, important air. [Description of outward appearance

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of the tall man] But soon the visitor from Paris is annoyed by a certain air of self-satisfaction and self-sufficiency mingled with a suggestion of limitations and want of originality. In this example (which is even longer than my quotation) a traveller is introduced, who walks through a small French provincial town and looks at its buildings and inhabitants and who is even talked to by one of the villagers. He is endowed with the identity of a man from Paris who visits this region for the first time. This obviously makes him someone who looks around with interest but also someone who views the village with the eyes of a man from the city. We observe the same effect as in my earlier example from George Eliot, where we had an inhabitant from London looking at a small country village.7 There are many variations on this theme, for instance Walter Scott in his novel Waverley introducing a French tourist who looks at a scene in a Scottish town.8 I take a large step and arrive in the Byzantine period – Procopius, De aedificiis 1.11 (c. 550 ad): Ἐκ δὲ τῆς Προποντίδος ἐσπλέοντι ἐς τὰ πρὸς ἕω τῆς πόλεως, βαλανεῖον ἐν ἀριστερᾷ ἐν δημοσίῳ ἐστίν. For someone sailing from the Propontis towards the east side of the city, there is to the left a public bath. This is the anonymous traveller in his least concrete or bodily shape: he is no more than a dative participle.9 This idiom is found throughout antiquity in historians and periegetic writers like Pausanias, Herodian, Appian, back via Thucydides and Herodotus to Hecataeus.10 It probably owes its origin to the format of the periplus or ‘circumnavigation’, the description of coastlines as seen by someone sailing past

  7 There may be an additional effect intended by Stendhal in that his novel will tell the story of an inhabitant of the small provincial town (Julien Sorel), who goes up to Paris to try his luck. I owe this observation to Joern Soerink.   8 Cf. Hamon [1981] 1993: 175: ‘s’introduisant successivement dans des milieux ou des espaces qu’il ne connaît pas (et qu’il explore) il va décrire ces milieux par ses regards . . . : voir les Persans, Hurons, etc., des textes du XVIIIe siècle, les provinciaux arrivant à Paris des textes du XIXe siècle, les badauds surréalistes, etc.’.   9 Cf. Kühner and Gerth [1898] 1976: 423–4. 10 For examples, see Akujärvi 2005: 164–6, and the index of De Jong 2012, s.v. anonymous focaliser. There are also variants featuring a tis or a ‘man’ (anēr) (e.g., Paus. Periegesis 9.39.10–11, and see Akujärvi 2005: 161, n. 85) or ‘it was possible to see’ (e.g., Josephus, Jewish War 3.529 or Xen. Hell. 3.4.16).

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them on a ship,11 but it came to be adopted in geographical or spatial descriptions in general. We meet an anonymous traveller who ‘comes to’, ‘sails’, ‘passes’, ‘crosses’ and the like and thereby describes countries, cities or buildings. The abstract nature of the dative participle offers great advantages, in that the ‘someone’ is timeless, bodiless and hence inexhaustible; no geographical barrier can stop him and he effortlessly moves across the earth or sea. As such he is an appealing figure for the reader (and perhaps prospective traveller) to identify with.12 In this context it is interesting to note that ancient rhetoric defines the description or ekphrasis as a λόγος περιηγηματικός (e.g., Theon 118.7–8, ed. Spengel), a term which, according to Dubel, always retains a concrete, spatial nuance: ‘discours’ and ‘parcours’. Likewise Habicht characterises periegetic literature as texts that ‘conduct . . . readers around a certain area . . . in just the same way that local guides show tourists around a spot’.13 The anonymous traveller will remain at home in modern tourist guides. Thus, in a Green Guide of Italy it says under the heading of ‘Portofino peninsula’: ‘This rocky, rugged promontory offers one of the most attractive landscapes on the Italian Riviera . . . By taking the corniche roads and the numerous foothpaths the visitor can discover the secret charms of this region.’14 I turn to a different genre, which also brings us from the Byzantine era to the imperial period of Greek literature – Achilles Tatius’ Leucippe and Clitophon 1.1–2 (second century ad): Σιδὼν ἐπὶ θαλάσσῃ πόλις· Συρίων ἡ θάλασσα. [. . . ] Ἐνταῦθα ἥκων ἐκ πολλοῦ χειμῶνος σῶστρα ἔθυον ἐμαυτοῦ τῇ τῶν Φοινίκων θεᾷ· Ἀστάρτην αὐτὴν οἱ Σιδώνιοι καλοῦσιν. περιϊὼν οὖν καὶ τὴν ἄλλην πόλιν καὶ περισκοπῶν τὰ ἀναθήματα ὁρῶ γραφὴν ἀνακειμένην γῆς 11 See Güngerich 1950, esp. 9: ‘Es ist eine lockere, parataktische Aufzählung der Őrtlichkeiten in der Reihenfolge, wie man an ihnen vorbeikam.’ Habicht 1985: 3 notes the relationship between periegetic literature and the periplus. 12 Akujärvi 2005: 146–58. Of course, as Purves 2010: 144–6 notes, the hodological way of describing space, that is, following a trajectory from A to B from the perspective of a traveller (to which the anonymous traveller in the shape of a dative participle obviously belongs) is more experiential than cartographic space (e.g., Hecataeus, Periegesis F 163: ‘the Cherronesians border, ὁμορέουσι, the Apsinthians to the south’; Hdt. Hist. 5.49: ‘the Phrygians are next to, ἔχονται, the Lydians to the east’). But we never hear of the anonymous traveller being tired (or losing his way). 13 Dubel 1997: 252; Habicht 1985: 3. 14 Modern Rough Guides all employ the more direct ‘you’ form (which as a matter of fact also has ancient roots; cf., e.g., Hdt. 2.29.2: ‘Having crossed this, you will come, ἥξεις, to the stream of the Nile’; or Paus. Perieg.: ‘Here, first, the Alpheus will receive you, σε ἐκδέξεται’).

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ἅμα καὶ θαλάττης. Εὐρώπης ἡ γραφή. [. . . ] Ἐγὼ δὲ καὶ τὰ ἄλλα μὲν ἐπῄνουν τῆς γραφῆς, ἅτε δὲ ὢν ἐρωτικὸς περιεργότερον ἔβλεπον τὸν ἄγοντα τὸν βοῦν Ἔρωτα, καί, “Οἷον,” εἶπον, “ἄρχει βρέφος οὐρανοῦ καὶ γῆς καὶ θαλάσσης.” ταῦτά μου λέγοντος νεανίσκος καὶ αὐτὸς παρεστώς, “Ἐγὼ ταῦτ’ἂν ἐδείκνυν,” ἔφη, “τοσαύτας ὕβρεις ἐξ ἔρωτος παθών.” Sidon is a city by the sea. The Sea is the Assyrian . . . Having arrived there after a severe storm, I went to make offerings for my safe arrival to the goddess of the Phoenicians. The Sidonians call her Astarte. As I was therefore walking about the city and in particular looking at its memorial offerings, I see a votive painting of land and sea. The painting was of Europa . . . I looked in admiration at the entire painting, but being a lover of erōs myself looked with special attention at the figure of Eros leading the bull and said aloud: ‘To think that such a child can reign supreme on earth and at sea.’ At my saying this a young man who stood nearby said: ‘I might be called a living example, for I have suffered great indignities as a result of love.’ 15 This novel, famously, opens with an anonymous traveller who looks at (and describes) a large painting, gets into conversation with another young man (Clitophon), who, prodded by his interlocutor, takes the floor and in the ensuing eight books tells the (love-)story of his many adventures. Neither in the course of Clitophon’s narration nor at the end of it does the camera for one second change back to the anonymous young man of the opening scene, and his role quintessentially is that defined by Calvino: ‘the traveller always appeared only in the first pages and then was never mentioned again – he had fulfilled his function, the novel wasn’t his story’. While the anonymous traveller in the examples so far was a convenient peg to hang spatial descriptions on, here he is the convenient recipient of an entire story. Indeed, as has been argued by Most, he is the necessary recipient: a first-person narrative such as will be told by Clitophon can only be forced on strangers in Greek literature, who moreover need to be coaxed into listening. The anonymous traveller (who is, of course, a stand-in for the reader) is a pure cipher, a figure devoid of any characteristics whatsoever – with one 15 It was Ewen Bowie who reminded me of this passage. I quote the text of Gaselee (Loeb). This is a rather special variant of the anonymous traveller since he is an (internal) narrator and thereby – slightly – more individualised and personalised than most travellers, but I see no difference in principle from the Parisian traveller of Stendhal.

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fateful exception. The only thing we ever learn about him is that he, like the reader (who otherwise would not be reading this kind of text), is ἐρωτικός (i 2.1): and this is the strait gate though which Cleitophon will be able to drive the whole σμῆνος λόγων of his own erotic adventures.16 We may add that, being a victim of storms at sea himself, the anonymous stranger will be all the more apt to listen sympathetically to Clitophon’s story, which includes many storms. The device of the anonymous traveller is not confined to narrative genres, as the following example shows, which also brings us to the classical era (Isocrates, Panegyricus 133, 380 bc): Ἡγοῦμαι δ’, εἴ τινες ἄλλοθεν ἐπελθόντες θεαταὶ γένοιντο τῶν παρόντων πραγμάτων, πολλὴν ἂν αὐτοὺς καταγνῶναι μανίαν ἀμφοτέρων ἡμῶν, οἵτινες οὕτω περὶ μικρῶν κινδυνεύομεν, ἐξὸν ἀδεῶς πολλὰ κεκτῆσθαι, καὶ τὴν ἡμετέραν αὐτῶν χώραν διαφθείρομεν, ἀμελήσαντες τὴν Ἀσίαν καρποῦσθαι. I think that if some persons should come here from another part of the world and would become viewers of the present state of affairs, they would charge us both [i.e., the Athenians and the Spartans] with utter madness, because we risk our lives in this way, fighting over trifles, though it is possible in security to enjoy a wealth of possessions, and impoverish our own territory while neglecting to exploit that of Asia.17 The anonymous traveller, here in the shape of a tis, is a non-Greek, who sees himself suddenly confronted with the political behaviour of the Greeks. The idea is of course that as an outsider he will look at this 16 Most 1989: 133. His claim that first-person narratives need a stranger as narratee seems to me more plausible than that they always have to be tales of woe. See also Morales 2004: 146–7. 17 Cf. Isocrates, On the peace 41 (‘For suppose that someone [tis] from another part of the world were to come to Athens, having had no time to be tainted with our depravity, but brought suddenly face to face with what goes on here, would he not think that we are mad and bereft of our senses, seeing that we plume ourselves upon the deeds of our ancestors and think fit to eulogize our city by dwelling upon the achievements of their time and yet act in no respect like them but do the very opposite?’); Plato, Laws 637 c (‘For to a stranger [ξένῳ] expressing surprise at the singularity of what he sees in comparison to his own customs, anyone will answer: “Do not be surprised, stranger; this is our custom, and you may very likely have some other custom about the same things” ’); Cicero, Pro Caelio 1.1 (‘If, gentlemen, anyone (quis) should happen to be present who is ignorant of our laws or tribunals and customs, he would, in my opinion, immediately wonder what . . . ’).

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behaviour with fresh eyes and thereby note its madness, ­something of which the Greeks themselves have become unaware.18 He is introduced by Isocrates to bring home the central point of his whole speech (or rather political pamphlet, since he never delivered this text on which he worked for many years), that the Greeks should unite to fight their eternal Angstgegner Persia. This passage is a specimen of what ancient rhetoric called ēthopoeia (sermocinatio): the fabrication of statements, soliloquies or unexpressed mental reflections of a (historical or invented) person.19 Rhetorical handbooks describe the function of this device as a means for a speaker to express advice, reproach, complaint, praise or blame via another than himself.20 This accords well with my thesis that the anonymous traveller quintessentially is an outsider who looks at scenery or a situation with fresh eyes. A very different task is to be performed by the anonymous traveller in the hands of a philosopher like Plato. In his tireless attempts at making clear the difference between the sensible world and the world of Forms, he once introduces an anonymous person who can actually watch that world of Forms (Plato, Phaedo 109c–e, 370 bc): ἡμᾶς οὖν οἰκοῦντας ἐν τοῖς κοίλοις αὐτῆς λεληθέναι καὶ οἴεσθαι ἄνω ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς οἰκεῖν, ὥσπερ ἂν εἴ τις ἐν μέσῳ τῷ πυθμένι τοῦ πελάγους οἰκῶν οἴοιτό τε ἐπὶ τῆς θαλάττης οἰκεῖν καὶ διὰ τοῦ ὕδατος ὁρῶν τὸν ἥλιον καὶ τὰ ἄλλα ἄστρα τὴν θάλατταν ἡγοῖτο οὐρανὸν εἶναι, διὰ δὲ βραδυτῆτά τε καὶ ἀσθένειαν μηδεπώποτε ἐπὶ τὰ ἄκρα τῆς θαλάττης ἀφιγμένος μηδὲ ἑωρακὼς εἴη, ἐκδὺς καὶ ἀνακύψας ἐκ τῆς θαλάττης εἰς τὸν ἐνθάδε τόπον, ὅσῳ καθαρώτερος καὶ καλλίων τυγχάνει ὢν τοῦ παρὰ σφίσι, μηδὲ ἄλλου ἀκηκοὼς εἴη τοῦ ἑωρακότος. ταὐτὸν δὴ τοῦτο καὶ ἡμᾶς πεπονθέναι· οἰκοῦντας γὰρ ἔν τινι κοίλῳ τῆς γῆς οἴεσθαι ἐπάνω αὐτῆς οἰκεῖν, καὶ τὸν ἀέρα οὐρανὸν καλεῖν, ὡς διὰ τούτου οὐρανοῦ ὄντος τὰ ἄστρα χωροῦντα· τὸ δὲ εἶναι ταὐτόν, ὑπ’ ἀσθενείας καὶ βραδυτῆτος οὐχ οἵους τε εἶναι ἡμᾶς διεξελθεῖν ἐπ’ ἔσχατον τὸν ἀέρα· ἐπεί, εἴ τις αὐτοῦ ἐπ’ ἄκρα ἔλθοι ἢ πτηνὸς γενόμενος ἀνάπτοιτο, κατιδεῖν ἀνακύψαντα, ὥσπερ ἐνθάδε οἱ ἐκ τῆς θαλάττης ἰχθύες ἀνακύπτοντες ὁρῶσι τὰ ἐνθάδε, οὕτως ἄν τινα καὶ τὰ ἐκεῖ κατιδεῖν, καὶ εἰ ἡ φύσις ἱκανὴ εἴη ἀνασχέσθαι 18 Cf. Setti [1886] 1960: ad loc.: ‘cioè degli stranieri, il cui giudizio appunto come tali, potera essere più imparziale’. 19 Lausberg [1963] 1997: §§ 820, 824, 826. 20 Cf., for example, Quint. Inst. 9.2.30–7 (‘His [sc. fictiones personarum] suadendo, obiurgando, querendo, laudando, miserando, personas idoneas damus’, ‘We use these . . . to provide appropriate characters with words of advice, reproach, complaint, praise, or pity’). See also Hagen 1966: 70–4.

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the anonymous traveller in european literature 325 θεωροῦσα, γνῶναι ἂν ὅτι ἐκεῖνός ἐστιν ὁ ἀληθῶς οὐρανὸς καὶ τὸ ἀληθινὸν φῶς καὶ ἡ ὡς ἀληθῶς γῆ. But we, who dwell in the hollows of the earth, have forgotten this and we think that we dwell on top of the earth; as when someone lives on the bottom of the sea but thinks that he lives on top of the sea and looking at the sun and the stars through the water and the air would think that the sea is the heaven, because by reason of his sluggishness and feebleness he is unable to attain to the upper surface of the air and emerging and poking up his head see himself how much purer and more beautiful it is than their region, or hear about it from someone who has seen it. Our experience is the same. For living in a hollow of the earth we think that we live on top of it and we call the air heaven, as if this [the air] were the heaven, and the stars moved through it. And the reason is the same, namely that by reason of our feebleness and sluggishness we are not able to go up to the outermost part of the air. For if anyone should come up to the top of the air or should get wings and fly up, he could lift his head above it and see, as fishes lift their heads out of the water and see the things here, so he would see the things there; and, if his nature were suited to bear the sight, he would recognise that that is the real heaven and the real light and the real earth. This Jules Verne-like anonymous traveller who can fly is of course hypothetical, but he is endowed by Plato with enough substance to have physical sensations: one needs a suitable physis to look at the world of Forms. What Plato means here becomes clear from a related image that he employs to make clear the nature of the world of Forms, that is, the famous allegory of the cave (Republic 7.514–18): there it is said that to look at world of Forms with its glitter and dazzle is painful to the eyes (515e).21 I go back in time once more and arrive in the time of archaic poetry. In the Homeric Hymn to Apollo the hymnic narrator famously inserts an evocation of the Ionian festival on Delos in honour of Apollo. The festival is first focalised by the god himself, who is said to come to Delos and take delight in the Ionians with their trailing robes, who 21 For the idea of flying, Rowe 1993 on 109e3 points to Phaedrus 246a–248a, where Plato speaks of the soul in terms of a charioteer and a pair of winged horses and where of the best souls the charioteer may stick his head through the outermost rim of the universe and glimpse the reality beyond.

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hold boxing, dancing and singing contests in his honour (143–50). But then the narrator introduces an anonymous ‘man’, to take over the focalisation (Homeric Hymn to Apollo 151–5, seventh or sixth century bc): φαίη κ’ ἀθανάτους καὶ ἀγήρως ἔμμεναι ἀνήρ, ὃς τότ’ ἐπαντιάσει’ ὅτ’ Ἰάονες ἀθρόοι εἶεν· πάντων γάρ κεν ἴδοιτο χάριν, τέρψαιτο δὲ θυμὸν ἄνδρας τ’ εἰσορόων καλλιζώνους τε γυναῖκας νῆάς τ’ ὠκείας ἠδ’ αὐτῶν κτήματα πολλά.22

155

A man might think they were immortal and ageless, who would then come along, when the Ionians are gathered. He would take in the beauty of the whole scene, and be delighted at the spectacle of the men and the fair-girt women, the swift ships and the people’s piles of belongings. The function of this anonymous traveller has been well described by Miller: the narrator introduces a ‘hypothetical observer from outside the pan-Ionian community . . . whose testimony carries conviction because it is independent of ethnic or cultic allegiances’.23 As in the example from Isocrates, it is his status as outsider that makes him the right person to evaluate what is going on, this time not in a critical but in a praising mood. From the Homeric hymns it is only a small step back in time to reach Homer, who provides us with more than one example of the anonymous traveller. A first one is Il. 7.87–91, where Hector, defining the conditions of a duel, tells what he will do when he defeats his opponent: 22 ἀνήρ is the reading of one group of manuscripts, while another has αἰεί. For my interpretation this makes no difference since even with the reading αἰεί the anonymous traveller is contained in the autonomous relative clause ὃς τότ’ ἐπαντιάσει’. This is a conjecture of Ilgen for οἳ τότ’ ἐπ’ ἀντιᾶσι τ’/ἐπαντία σεῖο τ’. These manuscript readings can only be right if we would change φαίη κ’ into φαίης κ’: ‘you would think them immortal who then step before you when . . . ’, vel sim., but this results in a very abrupt change from second- person to third-person potential in the next line (ἴδοιτο). 23 Miller 1986: 58. N. J. Richardson 2010: ad 151–2 is less convincing: ‘The poet cannot see all this himself, and uses another’s eyes to do so’; if the poet really needed a panoramic view, he could not have done better than continue Apollo’s focalisation. The hymnic narrator again introduces an anonymous traveller (perhaps the same person) at 167–73 (ξεῖνος ταλαπείριος ἐλθών), this time to arrange praise of himself.

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the anonymous traveller in european literature 327 “καί ποτέ τις εἴπῃσι καὶ ὀψιγόνων ἀνθρώπων νηῒ πολυκλήϊδι πλέων ἐπὶ οἴνοπα πόντον· ‘ἀνδρὸς μὲν τόδε σῆμα πάλαι κατατεθνηῶτος, ὅν ποτ’ ἀριστεύοντα κατέκτανε φαίδιμος Ἕκτωρ’. ὥς ποτέ τις ἐρέει· τὸ δ’ ἐμὸν κλέος οὔ ποτ’ ὀλεῖται.”

90

‘(I will heap a mound by the broad Hellespont) And once even someone of men later born will say sailing in his many-benched ship over the wine-coloured sea: “This is the mound of a man who died long ago. whom glorious Hector once killed while he was excelling in battle.” That is what he will say; and my kleos will never die.’ This anonymous tis is a voyager not merely in space but also in time: he belongs to the future. His function is to voice an oral (or quasi-) epitaph and thereby confirm Hector’s eternal kleos.24 A shrewd use is made of the format of the anonymous traveller by Athena, visiting Telemachus and trying to rouse him into action (Od. 1.224–9): “ἀλλ’ ἄγε μοι τόδε εἰπὲ καὶ ἀτρεκέως κατάλεξον· τίς δαίς, τίς δὲ ὅμιλος ὅδ’ ἔπλετο; τίπτε δέ σε χρεώ; εἰλαπίνη ἦε γάμος; ἐπεὶ οὐκ ἔρανος τάδε γ’ ἐστίν, ὥς τέ μοι ὑβρίζοντες ὑπερφιάλως δοκέουσι δαίνυσθαι κατὰ δῶμα. νεμεσσήσαιτό κεν ἀνὴρ αἴσχεα πόλλ’ ὁρόων, ὅς τις πινυτός γε μετέλθοι.”

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‘But come tell me this and explain it in truth: what feast, what gathering is this? How does it concern you? Is it a banquet or a wedding? For this is no communal dinner, considering how they seem to dine hybristically and insolently in your house. Any sensible man who would arrive on the scene would react with criticism at the sight of their many shameful deeds.’ Throughout her conversation with Telemachus Athena has been suppressing her divine omniscience and played the role of ignorant outsider, in order to make Telemachus talk about his situation and thereby prepare him for action. In this passage she ‘intensifies her own role as “outsider” by conjuring up a h ­ ypothetical 24 The passage has been discussed by De Jong 1987b: 77–8; Scodel 1992.

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“prudent” onlooker, who is scandalised by the shameful things’.25 The Homeric narrator himself also, once, effectively introduces an anonymous traveller (Il. 4.539–44): Ἔνθά κεν οὐκέτι ἔργον ἀνὴρ ὀνόσαιτο μετελθών, ὅς τις ἔτ’ ἄβλητος καὶ ἀνούτατος ὀξέϊ χαλκῷ δινεύοι κατὰ μέσσον, ἄγοι δέ ἑ Παλλὰς Ἀθήνη χειρὸς ἑλοῦσ’, αὐτὰρ βελέων ἀπερύκοι ἐρωήν· πολλοὶ γὰρ Τρώων καὶ Ἀχαιῶν ἤματι κείνῳ πρηνέες ἐν κονίῃσι παρ’ἀλλήλοισι τέταντο.

540

Then no longer would a man having arrived on the scene make light of the action, who still unscathed by throw or stab of the sharp bronze would roam at the battle’s centre, and Pallas Athena would lead him having taken his hand, and drive back the volley of spears. For on that day many Trojans and Greeks lay stretched side by side, face down in the dust.26 We here have the anonymous traveller taking the shape of an embedded war-reporter, who visits the Iliadic theatre of war. He is given such a tangible existence that the narrator has to assure us that Athena protects him. Indeed, the passage is a variant of Il.13.127–8 = 17.398–9, where we hear of the gods of war Athena and Ares not making light of the battle. For once, the Homeric narrator opts for a mortal viewer, presumably to make him a more likely person for his (mortal) narratees to identify with. Is Homer the prōtos heuretēs of the anonymous traveller device, or can we go back in time even further and, following the example of Martin West, look east of the Helicon? There is perhaps one precedent in Gilgamesh Tablet II, lines 218–29 (Enkidu is speaking and trying to hold Gilgamesh back from going to the Forest of Cedar, where the monster Humbaba dwells): ‘That is a journey [which must not be made,] [that is a man who must not be looked on.] He who guards the [Forest of Cedar, his reach is wide,] 25 De Jong 2001 on 1.224–9. 26 There are more anonymous focalisers of the war in the Iliad (4.421; 13.343–4; 16.638–40), but they are not travellers; see De Jong [1987a] 2004: 57–9.

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the anonymous traveller in european literature 329 Humbaba, his voice is the Deluge. [ . . . ] Who is there would oppose him among the Igigi? So to keep safe the cedars, Enlil made it his lot to terrify men; And he who ventures into the forest, feebleness will seize him.’27

The role of the anonymous traveller here is somewhat different from that in the other examples (he is to act rather than merely to watch), and one may hesitate whether to include it. If one does see it as a precedent, the passage should warn us that what we take to be typically Greek may in fact have eastern roots (unless we assume that eastern literature took the device over from Greek literature in the course of a long process of mutual influencing in an early Mediterranean literary koinē).28 For my argument this caveat is no real problem, since except (perhaps) for Homer, none of the Greek (or later European) authors who use the device will have had the Epic of Gilgamesh as their model. The question, to be discussed in the next section, is whether they had a model at all. EVALUATION: NARRATIVE UNIVERSAL OR GREEK MEME? My tour d’horizon of European literature has more than confirmed Italo Calvino’s claim that the figure of the anonymous traveller is an ancient novelistic device, indeed has shown it to be more ancient than he had perhaps realised. The anonymous traveller is present in many genres, takes many forms, and fulfils many functions: restricting myself to the Greek examples, he (it is always a he) occurs in historiography and periegetic literature, epic, hymn, novel, oratory and philosophy; he may be virtually bodiless and hence inexhaustible, or he may have such a concrete shape as to need the protection of a goddess; he looks at natural scenery, buildings, people, events and human behaviour, or even the world of Forms, or he listens to stories; and his looking is usually accompanied by emotions, such as admiration, astonishment, curiosity or disapproval. 27 I owe this reference to Johannes Haubold. I quote the translation of Andrew George (1999) except for the last line, which he interestingly enough translates as ‘if you penetrate his forest you are seized by the tremors’, thus illustrating once again the point discussed in my introductory section about the closeness of ‘one’ and ‘you’. The text has, however, a third-person participle, as JH wrote to me and other translations make clear. JH also pointed out to me that Mesopotamian geographical texts have the ‘you form’ (‘to the third region, where you travel seven leagues’) which we know from Herodotus and other authors (see n. 14). 28 See the discussion in Henkelman 2006: 807–15.

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What does it mean when we find a certain narrative device throughout the ages and throughout the different literatures of Europe? Can we say that, since ancient Greek literature provided us with the first widely known specimens of the anonymous traveller, this is a device that Greece has bequeathed to European literature, just as it has given it so many other devices? In other words, are we to think in terms of diffusionism, of one culture once inventing something which is then taken over by other cultures? Or are we dealing with a narrative universal, an independent discovery in a wide range of places and at different moments in history, just as there are linguistic universals or cultural universals? Is it a genetic or a typological comparison that we are making?29 Most literary scholars traditionally like to think in terms of diffusionism or genetic comparison. Thus, a towering figure of comparative literature, Ernst Robert Curtius, passionately argues for the concept of a unified European literature, in which ‘literary constants’, as he calls them, are discernible: once invented, a literary device becomes a heritage which is taken over ‘in a hundred forms’ by later generations.30 One of his examples is the figure of the Muse. Recently, the case for narrative universals has been defended with fervour, for instance by Patrick Hogan: literature – or, more properly, verbal art – is not produced by nations, periods, and so on. It is produced by people. And these people are incomparably more alike than not. They share ideas, perceptions, desires, aspirations, and . . . emotions. Verbal art certainly has national, historical, and other inflections. The study of such particularity is tremendously important. However, literature is, first of all and most significantly, human . . . The following chapters address literature, then, not as the expression of an ethnic Weltanschauung, nor as evidence of an historical episteme, but rather as a human activity – something people do, and always have done, in all parts of the world, and at all times.31 Thus when we find the same theme in different literatures we should see it as a universal. His example is human emotion: once people develop literature, this literature will always deal with love, fear or jealousy. 29 For this distinction, see Nagy 2005: 71–2 and compare the contribution by Kelly in this volume. 30 See Curtius [1953] 1973: 3–16 (on European literature as a whole) and 391–7 on literary constants. 31 Hogan 2003: 3.

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the anonymous traveller in european literature 331 Is the anonymous traveller a narrative universal or a literary constant with a Greek pedigree? Let us start with thinking through the second position. There are some arguments which could be adduced in favour of seeing the device as a Greek one. In a paper on the ‘imaginary second person singular’ in Latin historiography, the type videres, cerneres about which I spoke in my introduction, Gilmartin observes that while in Latin we often find this imaginary second person, Greek prefers the third person tis. She suggests: The Latin preference for the second person singular and the Greek preference for tis may reveal less about the grammatical rules than about the approach of the people who used them. Although the choice of the more personal second person singular . . . rather than the impersonal third person, may have been determined largely by grammatical requirement or convention, we can expect great writers to make a virtue of such necessity. The preference for the concrete over the abstract, the subjective over the objective has been seen as characteristic of Latin literature.32 Although this quotation says more about Latin mentality than Greek, we may still distil from it the idea that the impersonal, abstract and objective imaginary third person would be (more) typically Greek. A second argument in favour of the anonymous traveller as a Greek phenomenon is the remark of the Latin grammarians Kühner and Stegmann that the dative participle variant (type: ἐσπλέοντι) was an originally Greek idiom, taken over by Roman historians.33 Finally, I have taken an – admittedly highly superficial – dip into Chinese poetry, where we find many references to travelling but always in the first person, for example Wang Wei, ‘An autumn night in the mountains’ (ad 701–61): In a quiet mountain after a sudden shower, Autumn fills the air in late evening hours. In between the pines, moonlight shows, Over the rocks, clear spring-water flows. 32 Gilmartin 1975: 120. In itself the formulation ‘impersonal and objective’ is apt to cause confusion: what Gilmartin refers to is the circumstance that a speaker makes another than himself voice an opinion. But that opinion itself is of course far from objective or impersonal. 33 For example, Caesar, B.C. 3.80.1: ‘Caesar Gomphos pervenit, quod est oppidum primum Thessaliae venientibus ab Epiro.’ Kühner and Stegmann [1914] 1976: 321: ‘Diese Konstruktion ist durch das Griechisch beeinflusst, wenn sie auch an sich durchaus nicht dem Geiste der lateinischen Sprache widerspricht.’

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Finished washing, women-folk come chattering Homebound through a bamboo path. Lily foliage are back and forth bending, As fishing boats slide past. Though spring is spent, Following my heart, I still may Let this lone traveller continue to stay. So, perhaps there is reason to think that the idea of introducing an anonymous outsider and borrowing his eyes to describe things (rather than describing them oneself) may be typically Greek. But even if we would accept the anonymous traveller as an originally Greek narrative device, we would still have to explain its dissemination and development into a literary constant in European literature. Returning briefly to Curtius’ example of the Muses, it is not difficult to imagine Milton consciously taking over this device from Homer and Virgil. But how about a less well-known or clearly identified minor device like the anonymous traveller? Was Flaubert inspired by Stendhal (quite likely), was George Eliot inspired by Stendhal (less certain), did Stendhal pick up the idea from Isocrates (hardly), and so on? Is it not more likely that the motif was (re-)invented several times in the course of European literary history and that we are dealing with a – kind of – narrative universal after all, one spread not over the globe but over the ages?34 Here it is perhaps helpful to think of the anonymous traveller device in terms of what Richard Dawkins has baptised memes: units of cultural transmission that are reproduced by imitation. As examples, he mentions tunes, catch-phrases, clothes fashions, technologies, ceremonies and so on.35 Thinking in terms of memes has the advantage that we can imagine the process of dissemination in terms of one person not so much consciously taking over something from another but rather simply using a device because he has come across it in another text, which copied it from another text and so on. Narrative 34 Cf. Leeman 1985: 214: ‘Some of the topoi were archetypal rather than literary: in that case they may pop up spontaneously and independently and be recognized as forming part of universal human experience. The two categories cannot always be distinguished.’ 35 See Dawkins 1976 and the helpful explanation (and radicalisation) in Blackmore 1999: 7, for example: ‘Everything that is passed from person to person in this way is a meme. This includes all the words in your vocabulary, the stories you know, the skills and habits you have picked up from others and the games you like to play. It includes the songs you sing and the rules you obey . . . Each of these memes has evolved in its own unique way with its own history, but each of them is using your behaviour to get itself copied’ (my italics).

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the anonymous traveller in european literature 333 devices would spread in the manner of the Chinese whispers game, one participant copying the words of another without knowing what the original message was.36 Hard-core ‘memeticists’ even speak of the meme itself ‘choosing’ its carrier, whereby it may go underground for some time and pop up again when the time is ripe, as when in the nineteenth century the recent invention of the train inspires novelists to introduce anonymous train-travellers. Looked at from this perspective the anonymous traveller might be considered an originally Greek meme that has proved to be an extremely fit survivalist. It has been reproduced in texts time and again from Homer to Calvino, and is sure to surface again.

36 The meme model may also be useful to explain what I have been doing in the Studies in Ancient Greek Narrative (De Jong et al. 2004; De Jong and Nünlist 2007; De Jong 2012), which sets out to trace the development of narrative techniques as such, yet also at times suggests that one author may have consciously taken over a certain device from another.

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INDEX

INDEX

Page numbers with ‘t’ are tables; with ‘n’ are notes. Page numbers in italics are figures. Abraham, 16, 17 Achilles, 204 in Heliodorus, 272, 276 in the Iliad, 22, 26–7, 80, 141; and Aeneas, 81; and Agamemnon, 81, 81t; and the ambassadors, 65–8; anger, 141, 145, 158; and battle, 22t, 41, 50n63, 51; bow contest, 165–6, 168; and Hector, 81; and the heralds, 57–9, 62; and Odysseus, 74; parable of the jars, 111, 115; and Patroclus, 62–3, 65–8, 70–1, 93n62, 165; and Phoenix, 75; and Priam, 26–7, 81t, 105, 111–12, 127–8; revenge, 163; and Thetis, 63, 180, 181–2, 187 in the Odyssey, 72, 89t in Pindar, 8, 202–7, 204, 212, 222 Achilles Tatius, 144, 265, 321–2 actors and roles, 235–40 addition, 77–8, 77 Aelian, 303 Aemilius Paullus, L. see Parallel Lives of Aemilius Paullus and Timoleon Aeschylus (Libation Bearers), 61 aestheticisation, 53 Aethiopica (Heliodorus), 2, 146–51, 154, 260, 264–76 Aethiopis, 205n16 Agamemnon, 22, 32, 35–9 Ajax and Achilles, 66–8, 70 and Hector, 42t, 60, 81 Ajax (Sophocles), 116, 168–9, 171, 227, 229, 231, 234, 236n29 Alcinous, 71–3, 83t, 137 Alciphron, 303 Allan, W., 237n34

ambassadors, 65 ‘An autumn night in the mountains’ (Wang Wei), 331–2 anagnōrismos, 94 analepses, 4, 157, 159–63, 166–7, 252 analogy, battle narrative, 30, 40–54, 42t, 43t Andromache (Euripides), 237 ANE (ancient Near East), 29–31, 40–54, 110 Anna Comnena, 267 Annals of Sennacherib (Sennacherib), 49, 50t, 51, 52 anonymous focalisation, 315–16, 317 ‘anonymous travellers’, 7, 314–17 in European Literature, 317–33 Anonymus Seguerianus, 169 anticipation see prolepses Antigone (Sophocles), 61, 112n29, 113, 234, 237 Antilochus, 8, 203, 204, 205–7, 218 Antisthenes, 153 Anzu, 47 Aphrodite, 8–9, 177–9, 181, 193–4 Apollonius, 55 Apologue, 82, 82t, 83–4, 95, 140, 158 and Gorgias’ Palamedes, 127–8 apology, and epistolary narratives, 303– 6, 308, 313 Arabian Nights, 271 Arcesilas of Cyrene, 214–17, 223 archery in the Iliad, 165–6 in the Odyssey, 71–2, 90 in Pindar, 205 Arete, 72, 83t, 88t, 90 aretē (virtue), 128, 130, 132, 159 Aristarchus, 165–7

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index

aristeia, 49–50, 51, 52, 81 Aristotle Ethics, 117 Poetics, 109, 117–18, 145, 156–7, 162; and time, 229, 230–1 Ars Poetica (Horace), 154–5 atē (ruin), 112–13 Athanassaki, Lucia, 8 Athena in Ajax (Sophocles), 116, 231 Iliad, 42t, 43t, 85t, 88t; Zeus, 38, 63–4 Ion (Euripides), 230n18 Odyssey, 96, 98–100; and Odysseus, 95; and Telemachus, 84, 94, 327–8 Atrahasis, 106n9 Auerbach, E., 7, 13, 14, 27–8 Mimesis, 13–18, 23–4, 57 Augustus, 219–22, 223–4, 287 awareness of mutability of fortune, 108 self-, 7 Babyloniaca (Iamblichus), 265 Bacchae (Euripides), 202, 237, 239, 240 Bacchylides, 115–16 Baines, J., 52n70 Bakker, E., 5, 24, 77, 81–2, 85 Bal, M., 4, 55n5, 58 Barthes, R., 55 battle narrative, 29–30 analogy, 40–54, 42t, 43t genealogy, 30, 32–40 Battus, 214, 215 Beard, Mary, 307 Beck, Deborah, 6 beginning choice of, 137–55 Horace on, 157–8 Bellum Catilinae (Sallust), 316 Benveniste, E., 244 Beye, C.R., 51 Bible (Hebrew), 7, 13, 27–8, 31 battle narrative, 42–4, 47 Book of Job, 106 Book of Judges, 32–40, 54 Deuteronomy, 33, 34 and Homeric narrative, 13–19, 57 Second Book of Kings, 33 shifts of focus, 60–1 Bibliotheke (Diodorus Siculus), 253 Blackmore, S., 332n35 Blindness, 25, 95, 131 Booth, W., 4 bow contests see archery

Bowie, Ewan, 275 Briefroman see epistolary novels Briseis, 58–60, 141 Brooks, P., 184 Bundy, E.L., 114 Burkert, Walter, 29, 50n63 Burnett, A.P., 191 Butcher, S.H., 231n20 Byatt, A.S., 315–16 Cadmus, 115 in Euripides, 170 in Pindar, 199, 200–2, 205, 206–7, 214, 222 Cairns, Douglas, 8 Calasiris, 146–54, 261, 266, 268, 270, 271, 273, 274 Calvino, Italo, 314, 322 Cameos, 61 Campbell, D.A., 190 Carcinus, 229 Carrhotus, 215–17, 223 Carson, A., 193n45 causality, 9, 165–6, 254–7, 259 character-speech, 54 Charicleia, 147, 149, 260–3, 268–70, 273, 276 Chariton, 146, 261n3 Chatman, S.B., 55 Chion, letters, 300, 302, 303–4, 306, 308, 312 Chorus, 226, 228, 231n20 chronology, 139 epistolary narratives, 306–7 and middle-beginning-end, 158–63 Cicero, 31n11 Classics, 263–4 Claudius Marcellus, M., 291 Clay, J.S., 225n59 cognitive turn, 5 comedy, 233n22, 269 comparative narratology, 5 conciseness, 169 Contest of Homer and Hesiod, 31 Cook, Erwin, 3, 39, 90n54 Cornelius Cossus, A., 286–7 Cornford, F.M., 120n56 Craft of Fiction, The (Lubbock), 4 Currie, B., 30n9 Curtius, Ernst Robert, 330 Cyrene, 214 Damophilus, 214, 216–17, 223 Dawe, R.D., 234n26 Dawkins, Richard, 332

­

index 373 De aedificiis (Procopius), 320 De Jong, Irene J.F., 4, 7, 63n22, 72n30, 168n31, 177, 187n30, 233n22 deceptive speeches, 234–5 Demodocus, 25 Demosthenes, 153 Deuteronomy, 33, 34 deviant focalisation, 6 Diapeira, 32–40, 54 didacticism, 257–8 digressions, 251–2, 258 Diodorus Siculus, 118, 224, 241, 242–3 Bibliotheke, 253 and causality, 256–7 didacticism, 257 and stock situations, 252–3 Diomedes, 49–50 Dionysiaca (Nonnus), 153 Dionysius of Halicarnassus, 139–40, 153, 154 on Polybius, 281 on Thucydides, 172, 293 direct/indirect speech, 9, 55, 70, 227, 237, 239, 249t discouragement test before battle, 34–5 disguise, 90, 93n62, 96 Documents in the Case, The (Sayers), 299–300, 301, 305, 306, 309, 311–12 Doenges, N., 310n39 Douglas, M., 79–82, 84 dreams in Gilgamesh, 21–2 in Heike monogatari, 107 in Heliodorus, 268 in the Iliad, 22, 39 in Pindar, 110 Easterling, P.E., 9 editors, in epistolary narratives, 311–12 Edwards, M., 77 Electra (Sophocles), 232, 235 Eliot, George, 315 embedded focalisation, 4 Emesan cult, 260, 262, 266–7 Emmenids of Acragas, 197, 198, 208–9 emotional response and literature, 330 and the ‘principle of alternation’, 103–5, 108–9, 112, 114n35, 116–18, 135–6 Empedocles, 139n3 Enargeia, 23–4, 26 Enkidu (Epic of Gilgamesh), 20, 21, 47, 328

Enuma Elis, 47 Epharmostus, 198, 205, 206 Ephorus, 295n46 epic, 3 performance, 99–100 prose, 146 Epic of Aqhat, 47 Epic of Baal, 47 Epic of Gilgamesh, 7, 19–24, 27–8, 106, 328–9 epinician poetry, 114–16, 197–225 epistolary novels, 7–8, 298–313 Erbse, H., 160n11, 166n, 167 erōs, 142–4, 145, 195 ‘essentials’, 161, 171 Ethics (Aristotle), 117 Ethiopia see Aethiopica ēthopoeia (sermocinatio), 324 eudaimonia, 117, 118, 131 Euripides, 61, 168–9 and Aethiopica (Heliodorus), 268–9 Andromache, 237 Bacchae, 202, 237, 239, 240 Helen, 237 Heracleidae, 237 Heracles, 237 Hippolytus, 228, 237, 238 Ion, 237, 239 Iphigenia in Tauris, 237 Medea, 231, 233 Orestes, 237 Phoenician Women, 170 spurious letters of, 6, 300–5, 308 Suppliant Women, 170 European literature, and the anonymous traveller, 317–33 Eurycleia, 13–14, 85t, 91, 95n69 Eustathius, 139, 150, 151, 153, 154, 160n11, 169n35 Euthydemus (Plato), 152 ‘Eutopias’, 209–18, 224 even-handedness, and historiography, 258–9 external narrators, 74, 285; see also remote narrators fables see gnōmai failure to flee, 39 Ferrari, F., 192 fertility myth, 91 First Olympian (Pindar), 225 first-person narration, 144 and Polybius, 283, 284–7 Flaubert, Gustave, 318–19 flying, 325

­374

index

focalisation/focus, 55–7 in Aethiopica (Heliodorus), 273 and the anonymous traveller, 315–16, 317 focalisation/focus (cont.) deviant, 6 embedded, 4 and historiography, 244 mind-reading, 62–5 shifts of, 57–62 Ford, Andrew, 25 Forms, world of, 324–5 fortune, mutability of see mutability of fortune Foster, B.O., 287 Fowler, Don, 6 Framing, 77–8, 77 Aphrodite by Sappho, 177–9 Necyia, 82t, 83t Telemachy, 85t free indirect discourse, 6 Frolov, Serge, 35 Future, 230 Gaisser, J. H., 78 Gallagher, S., 104n4 gap management, 65–74 Geiger, J., 129n84 genealogy of parallel texts, 30, 31, 32–40 use in structure, 170, 200 Genette, G., 4, 140–1, 252n Germany Nazism, 14–15 Philhellenism, 15–16, 17 Gibson, Roy, 307 Gideon (in Book of Judges), 32, 35, 40 Gilgamesh see Epic of Gilgamesh Gilmartin, K., 331 gnōmai, 109–16, 119n54, 136, 201 Goethe, Johan Wolfgang von, 299, 300–1 Goldman, R., 53n72 Gorgias, 137–8 Gould, J., 111n24, 227n4 Graziosi, B., 18 Greek (language), of Aethiopica, 267 Greenwood, E., 18 Güngerich, R., 321n11 Gymnosophists, 261, 262, 274 Hainsworth, B., 68 Hamblin, W.J., 44n43 Hamon, P., 320n8 Hanink, Johanna, 304

hapax, 151 happiness, 105, 114 eudaimonia, 117, 118, 131 happy endings, 145–6 Hau, Lisa, 9, 118, 132n99 Haubold, Johannes, 7 Heath, M.F., 146n Hector in the Iliad, 22, 36–7, 42t, 43t, 81, 81t, 168, 268, 326–7 in Sappho, 175, 194–5 Heike monogatari (The Tale of the Heike), 107–8, 110n23 Helen (Euripides), 237 Heliodorus, 2, 146–51, 260–76 Hellenica (Xenophon), 242 Hellenism and Heliodorus, 260–74 Henry V (Shakespeare), 34n21 Hera, 38, 43t, 63–4, 80, 143, 163 Heracleidae (Euripides), 237 Heracles in Bacchylides’ fifth ode, 115–16 in Horace, 220 in the Odyssey, 83t, 90 Olympian 3 (Pindar), 208–9, 215, 223 in Trachiniae (Sophocles), 227, 236 Heracles (Euripides), 237 Heralds, 57–62, 194, 227, 233–5 Herman, David, 315–16 Herodotus, 118–19, 158n7, 241–2 and causality, 254 didacticism, 257 even-handedness of, 258 founding of Cyrene, 214 and stock situations, 252 Hesiod, 3 Hieron, 115, 225 Higbie, C., 68 Hippolytus (Euripides), 228, 237, 238 hippotrophia, 210–11 historiography, 9 and Aethiopica (Heliodorus), 269–70 Latin, 331 and the principle of alternation, 118–36 and the reader, 279–82 and topoi, 241–59 tragic, 283 see also Livy; Polybius Hogan, Patrick, 330 Homer, 3 and the anonymous traveller, 326–7 and the Bible, 7

­

index 375 blindness, 25 free indirect discourse, 6 and Gilgamesh, 7 on his poetry, 25–6 self-awareness, 7 see also Iliad; Odyssey Homeric Hymn to Apollo, 325–6 ‘homing’, 79 Horace, 154–5, 162 Odes, 197, 199, 200, 219–22 Hornblower, S., 285n17 hospitality to guests theme (theoxeny), 90, 91, 96 Hubbard, M.A., 219 Hunter, Richard, 9 Hutto, D., 104n4 Hymn to Demeter, 90n54, 91, 93, 100 Hymn to Tiglath-Pileser, 45–6 hypothetical focalisation, 315–16, 317 ‘I’, lyric, 188 Iamblichus, 266 Babyloniaca, 265 If on a Winter’s Night a Traveller (Calvino), 314 Iliad (Homer) and the anonymous traveller, 329 battle narrative, 30–1, 41, 49–50, 53; Diapeira, 32–40, 54 beginning, 144 and Epic of Gilgamesh, 19–24 focus, 57–60, 62–4 gap management, 65–71 jars of Zeus, 105 and the principle of alternation, 105–6, 111–16, 128 ring-composition, 76–82, 78t, 81t second-person forms, 316 structure, 156, 158–9, 163–6, 172–3 Thetis’ arrival, 180–1 use of tis, 176–7, 184–8 immortality/mortality in Homer, 97 in Pindar, 199, 201, 206–9, 212, 218, 222, 225 impartiality of historiographers, 258 impermanence, 110 indefinite articles, 192 indexes, 290 indirect targets, 68, 70 ‘interest-focus’ 55–6, 66 interiority, 56–7 Intermezzo (in Odyssey), 83, 83t intertextuality Aethiopica (Heliodorus), 267, 276

Sappho, 176 tragedy, 230 invincibility of rulers, 49 Ion (Euripides), 237, 239 Iphigenia in Tauris (Euripides), 237 Isle of the Blessed, 201–2, 205, 206–7, 224 Isocrates, 323 Iullus Antonius, 221 Jahn, M., 58 Jakobson, Roman, 79 Janzen, W., 42n40 Japan, 107–8 jars of Zeus, 105, 111–12, 126–7, 131 Job, Book of, 106 Jones, Meriel, 269–70 Jörgensen, O., 193n42 Judges, Book of, 32–40, 54 Julia Domna, 260 Julian, Emperor, 266–7 Kaimio, Maarit, 236, 238 Katha Upanishad, 110n22 Katharsis, 145–6 Kelly, Adrian, 7 Knox, Ronald, 33, 38n29 Krischer, T., 180, 182n18 Kühner, R., 331 Labdacids, 201 Laclos, Pierre Choderlos de, Liaisons dangereuses, Les, 299–300, 301, 306, 309, 310 Laertes, 38, 67, 85, 95–6, 98–100 Latin, in historiography, 331 Leeman, A.D., 332n34 Leiden des jungen Werthers, Die (Goethe), 299, 300–1, 309, 311–12 Lettres portugaises, 303 Leucippe and Clitophon (Achilles Tatius), 321–2 Liaisons dangereuses, Les (Laclos), 299–300, 301, 306, 309, 310 Libation Bearers (Aeschylus), 61 Life of Apollonius (Philostratus), 274 Livy, 6–7, 279–81, 285–7, 291, 295–6 Longinus, 317 Longus, 261n3 Lord, Albert, 91 Lord, Mary Louise, 91–3 Lowe, N.J., 56, 176n7, 229n12 Lubbock, P., 4 Lucian, 173n43 lyric, 175–6, 182, 188, 190n37, 192, 196

­376

index

McCullough, Helen Craig, 108 McHale, B., 176n3, 182 Mackay, E.A., 76n7 Madame Bovary (Flaubert), 318–19 ‘Manuscript found in a bottle’ (Poe), 315 Marcus Aemilius Marcellus, 219, 291 Marincola, John, 283n13, 286 Masks, 236 Mastronarde, Donald, 237–8 Maxwell, G., 233n23 Medea (Euripides), 231, 233 memes, 332–3 Memnon, 8, 203, 204 Menelaus duels, 37, 42t, 81, 157n3 state of mind, 69–70 mental states of characters, 56–7, 59, 63–6, 69–70, 74, 299 messengers see heralds metalepsis, 6 Metiochus and Parthenope, 271 mid-turns, 80–1, 83–4, 94, 95 middle-beginning-end, 158 Miller, A.M., 326 Mimesis (Auerbach), 13–18, 23–4, 57 Mimnermus, 110 mind-reading, 62–5 mirror stories, 181 mnēsterophonia, 90, 93, 94–5 mono no aware (the pathos of things), 107 Morgan, J.R., 2 Morris, Sarah, 18, 29 Morrison, A.D., 7 mortality/immortality in Homer, 97 in Pindar, 199, 201, 206–9, 212, 218, 222, 225 Most, Glenn, 144 Motoori Norinaga, 107 mutability of fortune, 8, 113, 115 awareness of, 108 and historiography, 118–24, 129–30, 131, 135 Japan, 107–8 Myres, J., 76n7, 78 mythology, and Sappho, 175 naming, in Sappho, 175, 177–9, 183–4, 188 narrative theory, 5 Narratology and Interpretation (De Jong), 5–6 narrators, in tragedy, 233–5 Narrators and Focalizers (De Jong), 4, 317

nature’s cycles, in the Odyssey, 97–9 Nazism, 14–15 Nebuchadnezzar in Elam, 52 Necyia, 82–3, 82t, 83t, 95 nemesis, 123n, 125 Nestor in the Iliad, 36–7, 39n40, 63–4, 70–1, 162 in the Odyssey, 92 news-bringers see heralds Nicasippus, 211, 217–18 Nicholson, N.J., 214n32, 217n44 Nicias, 120n56, 125n70 Nickel, R., 93 Nicomachus, 199, 212–18, 225 Niditch, Susan, 35 Ninth Olympian (Pindar), 198, 205, 206, 224 Ninurta Epic, 47 Nisbet, R.G.M., 219 Nisetich, F.J., 218n47 Nonnus, 153 novels, 2, 270–1 and Achilles Tatius, 265 epistolary, 7–8, 298–313 ‘now’, 229–31 Nünlist, René, 9 Oatley, K., 109n15, 114n36 occasion, 8 in Horace, 219–22 in Pindar, 197–218 Odes (Horace), 197, 199 Odysseus in Ajax (Sophocles), 116 scar, 13–14, 16–18, 91 see also Odyssey Odyssey (Homer), 3, 88–9t and Aethiopica (Heliodorus), 267–8 and the anonymous traveller, 327–8 and the Bible (Hebrew), 13–19 choice of beginning, 137–55 gap management, 68–9, 71–4 indefinite articles, 192 nature’s cycles, 97–100 Nausicaa, 192, 194 Revenge, 76, 87, 88t, 90 ring-composition, 76–91 shifts of focus, 57 withdrawal and return, 91–6 Oedipus, 201 Oedipus at Colonus (Sophocles), 170, 239–40 Oedipus Tyrannus (Sophocles), 116–17, 234

­

index 377 ‘On Proteus’ (Antisthenes), 153 On the Sublime (Longinus), 317 Ooms, S., 168n31 ‘ordinary people’, 302–3 Orestes (Euripides), 237 Orientalism, ‘hard’, 31 Osborne, Robin, 29 otherness, 264, 266, 270, 273–5 Otterlo, W., 77 Page, D., 192n39, 195n51 paideia, 265 Pamela (Richardson), 299–300, 309, 311–12 Panegyricus (Isocrates), 323–4 parables see gnōmai Parallel Lives of Aemilius Paullus and Timoleon (Plutarch), 120–35 parallelism, 79, 80 ‘parallelomania’, 30 Paris Iliad, 43t; and Aphrodite, 81; duel with Menelaus; 37, 42t, 81, 157n3 in Sappho, 190n37 Parry, Milman, 14 Partridge, R.B., 49 Patroclus, 42t and Achilles, 59, 62–8, 70–1, 93n62 death of, 163–4, 165 Paulsen, Thomas, 268 Pausch, Dennis, 6 Peleus, 62, 111–12, 115, 212 in Pindar, 199, 200, 202, 205, 206–7, 222 Penelope, 57, 64, 84, 85t, 86–7, 100 dreams, 22 and Odysseus, 90–1, 94–6, 97–9 state of mind, 74 Penwill, J., 302, 306 performance culture, 222–5 and tragedy, 233–5 perspicuity, 169 persuasion, 65 Phaeacis, 76, 87, 88t, 90 Phaedo (Plato), 324–5 philhellenism, German, 15–16, 17 Philoctetes (Sophocles), 235, 237 Philostratus, 260, 266 Life of Apollonius, 274 Phoenician Women (Euripides), 170 Phoenix, 66–7, 68, 75, 275–6 phoenix, 275–6 Photius, 265 Pickard-Cambridge, Sir A.W., 237 Pindar, 8

Isthmian 2, 199, 209–18, 222–3, 225 Olympian 1, 225 Olympian 2, 115, 197, 199, 200–7, 212–18, 219, 222, 224 Olympian 3, 197, 198, 199, 208–9, 212–18, 223; and the Odes of Horace, 220 Olympian 9, 198, 205, 206, 224 Olympian 10, 197 Pythian 3, 115 Pythian 4, 199, 214–15, 216–17, 217n44, 223 Pythian 5, 214, 215–17, 217n44, 223 Pythian 6, 198, 199, 200, 203, 205, 206–7, 209–12, 218, 222–3, 225 Pythian 8, 109–10 Pinker, S., 105n Plato, 152 letters, 300, 301, 303, 304, 305–7 Phaedo, 324–5 Republic, 152, 270 Symposium, 270 plausibility, 169 Plutarch, Parallel Lives of Aemilius Paullus and Timoleon, 120–35 Poe, Edgar Allan, 315 Poem of the Righteous Sufferer, 106 Poetics (Aristotle), 109, 117–18, 145 on Iliad, 156–7 poetry archaic, 114, 325–6 epinician, 114 points of view first person, 144, 283, 284–7, 331 second person, 316–17, 317, 331 third person, 331 Polybius, 121–2, 132–3, 241, 243, 244 and causality, 255 didacticism, 257 even-handedness, 258 on his readers, 280–1, 282–4; knowledge of historical events, 288–92 ; macro-structure of his work, 292–6; talking about oneself, 284–7 and stock situations, 252–3 Porter, James, 15, 16, 17, 57n12 Possession (Byatt), 315–16 Powell, Barry, 18 Pratt, Mary Louise, 18–19 Priam in Aristotle, 117 Iliad, 7, 60; and Achilles, 26–7, 81t, 105, 111–12, 115, 128 in Plutarch, 127

­378

index

Prince, G., 182 ‘principle of alternation’, 8, 103–36 in historiography, 118–36 Prins, Y., 188 Procopius, 320 prolepses, 157, 160, 163–4, 165n21, 166–7, 252 prologues (proems), 80, 145, 162, 165n21, 264 Ajax (Sophocles), 116, 171 Euripides, 163, 168–9 Heike monogatari (The Tale of the Heike), 108n12 Iliad, 172–3 Odyssey, 87–9, 88t, 94, 95, 137–8 Parallel Lives of Aemilius Paullus and Timoleon, 130 in Polybius, 282, 288, 289 Sophocles, 171 prophecy, 95 prose epic, 146 Proteus of Pharos, 151–4 Proust, Marcel, 318 proverbs see gnōmai Pseudo-Demetrius, 167–8 Purves, Alex, 8–9, 321n12 Pythian 3 (Pindar), 115 Pythian 4 (Pindar), 199, 214–15, 216–17, 217n44, 223 Pythian 5 (Pindar), 214, 215–17, 217n44, 223 Pythian 6 (Pindar), 198, 199, 200, 203, 205, 206–7, 209–12, 218, 222–3, 225 Pythian 8 (Pindar), 109–10 Qadesh poem, 51, 52 questions as plot device in Homer, 176–7 in Sappho, 177–9, 181, 183–4 Quintilian, 158 race, 271; see also otherness Ramayana, 53n72 Ramesses II, 47–9, 48t rasa theory, 108–9 Rawles, R., 195 readers, of historical narrative, 279–81 recognition, 90–2, 94, 97–8 Red and the Black, The (Stendhal), 319–20 Redfield, James, 18 Rehm, R., 228n6, 233n24 Reinhardt, K., 63n23 rejuvenation, 98–100 remote narrators, 244, 258

repetition, 80, 184, 231 in the Odyssey, 138–40, 142 in Sappho’s works, 179, 184, 187, 189 in tragedy, 231 Republic (Plato), 152, 270 return, withdrawal and, 91–4 revenge, 61, 92–7, 163 Revenge, and ring-composition, 76, 88t, 90 Rhetoric of Fiction, The (Booth), 4 Richardson, N.J., 76n7, 78–9, 84, 153n39, 326n23 Richardson, Samuel, 299, 303 Rigveda, 110n22 ring-composition, 3, 76–91, 100 roles, actors and, 235–40 Rollinger, R., 31n12 Rood, Tim, 252n Rose, G., 92–3, 96 Rosenmeyer, P.A., 306, 309n37 Rothe, C., 63n22 Rowe, C.J., 325n ruin (atē), 112–13 Russo, Joseph, 33, 38n29 Rutherford, Ian, 271 Rutherford, Richard, 34 Said, Edward, 14 Sallust, 316 Sandmel, S., 30 Sappho, 8–9, 143–4, 175–96 Sargon King of Battle, 45 Saul, 43–4 Sayers, Dorothy L., Documents in the Case, The, 299–300, 301, 305, 306, 309, 311–12 scar, Odysseus’, 13–14, 16–18, 91 Scenes of Clerical Life (Eliot), 315 Schechner, Richard, 108–9 Scodel, Ruth, 6, 7, 74, 86, 177, 181n16, 196n, 230 Scott, Walter, 320 Second Book of Kings, 33 Second Idyll (Theocritus), 141–4 Second Isthmian (Pindar), 199, 209–18, 222–3, 225 Second Olympian (Pindar), 115, 197, 199, 200–7, 212–18, 222, 224 and Odes (Horace), 219 self-awareness, 7 self-consciousness, 9–10, 82 self-limitation, 56 Sennacherib, 49, 50t Seventh Letter (Plato), 301, 304 Shakespeare, William, Henry V, 34n21

­

index 379 Shapiro, K., 203n15 shift of focus, 55–62 Shriver, Lionel, 299 similes, Homer, 22–3 Siphnian treasury, 203, 204, 212 Skinner, M.B., 185n28 Snell, B., 56 sociality of emotion, 103 solitude, 141 Sophocles Ajax, 116, 168–9, 171, 229, 231 Antigone, 61, 112n29, 113, 234, 237 Electra, 232, 235 and Euripides, 304–5 Oedipus at Colonus, 170, 239–40 Oedipus Tyrannus, 116–17, 234 Philoctetes, 235, 237 Trachiniae, 169, 227, 230, 236 Sorrows of Young Werther, The (Goethe), 299, 300–1 space, and tragedy, 227–9 Stanley, K., 81 Stegmann, C., 331 Steiner, George, 112n29 Stendhal, 319–20 stock events, 245, 246–50t, 251, 259 stock situations, 9, 241–59, 246–50t structural narratology, 2 structure, 156–74 Suda, 265 ‘suggestion of retreat’ theme, 36–7, 39 Suppliant Women (Euripides), 170 Swain, S.C.R., 129n84, 133, 134n105, 135n106 Swann’s Way (Proust), 318 Symposium (Plato), 270 synkrisis, 133, 135n106 tables of contents, 290 Tale of the Heike, The (Heike monogatari), 107–8 Tale of Sinuhe, 47–9, 48t Taplin, Oliver, 63n22, 228 Tatum, W.J., 130n92, 132, 134n102 tedium, 172 Telemachus, 57, 87, 90, 94–5, 97, 98n85, 99 and Athena, 327 Telemachy, 76, 83–6, 85t, 92–3 temporal sequences, Iliad, 78–9 Tenth Olympian (Pindar), 197 ‘testing with words’ theme, 37–8, 39, 90 Thalmann, W. G., 76

Theagenes, 147, 149, 260, 263–4, 268, 271–3, 275–6 Themistocles, 300, 301–2, 303–4, 310 Theocritus, 141–4 Theodicy, 106 Theognis, 179n14 Theon, Aelius, 138–9, 140, 158 Theory of Mind, 56, 64, 73–4, 104n4 Theotimus, 216 theoxeny, 90, 91, 96 Theron, 199, 200–1, 208 and Olympian 3 (Pindar), 208 Thetis in Euripides, 206n19 in the Iliad, 63, 166, 180–1, 187 in Pindar, 202–3, 205–7 in Sappho, 182–3 Third Olympian (Pindar), 197, 198, 199, 208–9, 212–18, 223 and the Odes of Horace, 220 Thrasybulus, 199, 202, 205, 206–7, 209–13, 216, 217 Thucydides, 159, 241, 285 on beginnings, 141 and causality, 254–5 didacticism, 257 Dionysius of Halicarnassus on, 172 even-handedness, 258 on mutability of fortune, 119–20 and stock situations, 252–3 Tilg, Stefan, 146 Timaeus, 122 time, and tragedy, 229–33 Timoleon see Parallel Lives of Aemilius Paullus and Timoleon Tiresias, 83, 83t, 95, 100 tis/ti and the anonymous traveller, 323–4, 327, 331 in Homer, 176–7, 184–8, 193 in Sappho, 189–91, 193–4 topoi, 241–59, 246–50t Trachiniae (Sophocles), 169, 227, 230, 236 tragedy, 9, 56, 116–18, 226–7 performance and, 233–8 and space, 227–9 and time, 229–33 Trollope, Anthony, 299, 311 Tukulti-Ninurta Epic, 45 Tyche, 124–6, 143 tychē, 121–2, 123n, 127–8, 130, 132–3, 135; see also mutability of fortune type-scenes, 90

­380

index

‘Utopias’, 198–9, 200–9, 224 Van Otterlo, W., 77 Várhelyi, Z., 135n107 Versnel, H.S., 113n35 virtues of narrative, 169 vividness (enargeia), 23–4, 26 Walbank, F.W., 295n46 Wallace-Hadrill, A., 221n wandering, 151 Wang Wei, 331–2 Waverley (Scott), 320 We Need to Talk about Kevin (Shriver), 299 Werther see Leiden des jungen Werthers, Die West, David, 220 West, M.L., 29, 31n12, 32–3, 34, 39n32, 39n34, 110, 179, 193n44, 328 Weststeijn, W., 55n4 Whitman, C., 76n7, 78–9, 82, 86 Whitmarsh, Tim, 149, 192n40, 263, 274 Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, U. von, 179, 209n25, 213n31 Winkler, J.J., 154, 192

withdrawal and return, 91–4 Wohl, Victoria, 190n37 wrath, and the Iliad, 144–5 Wright, Allen, 35 Xenocrates and Isthmian 2, 209–13, 214n32, 216, 217–18, 222, 224–5 and Olympian 2, 200, 202–3, 205–7 Xenophon, 241, 261n3 and causality, 255–6 even-handedness, 258 Hellenica, 242 and stock situations, 252–3 Younger, Kenneth Lawson, 42n40, 45 Zenodotus, 163 Zenon of Rhodes, 283 Zeus in Heliodorus, 149 in the Iliad, 43t, 80, 81, 163; addressed by Menelaus, 69–70; Hera and Athena, 38, 63–4; jars of Zeus, 105, 111–12, 126–7, 131; testing the army, 35 in the Odyssey, 96, 100